Turned Upside Down in the Beat of an Angel's Wings
by ScarletsFeed
Summary: I don't know what happened. One minute, I was happy, I had a family, I went to school, had friends.. everything was easy. I loved it until everything around me started to shatter. Suddenly my friends, my family, everything- they all fell away from me. My name is Thea Echoette. My Family was murdered, and I was swept into the Supernatural, all by the sound of fluttering wings.
1. Chapter 1- Watch Me Shatter

**Watch Me Shatter**

 **Disclaimer: I Do Not Own SPN or its characters, I DO however own all my OCs, Ideas, and the story.**

* * *

 _Thunder crashed overhead, the darkness of the storm raging outside engulfing the house. All the lights were out, the power had been cut, the rain pound at the window panes, the wind howled non-stop._

 _It was the thunderstorm of the century outside, it was massive, unexpected, it'd come on in seconds, it was downright unnatural. For all I knew, it probably was unnatural. It be easy to believe, I wasn't sure I was actually awake at the moment, I felt like I was in a dream..._

 _God I wished it was a dream. I pleaded and pleaded that this was a dream, but it was more like a nightmare. I didn't want this to be real, and how could it be? What was going on was insane, I was probably insane. Could I be going insane?_

 _I stood in the middle of the living room, the furniture was thrown around, the coffee table was shattered, and the carpet had a very large red stain in the center. I saw it glistening wet every time a flash of lightning struck out across the sky outside, my heart raced, my mind sluggish and panic and adrenaline suddenly surging through me._

 _That couldn't be blood. It looked like blood.. But why would there be blood?_

 _The stain was connected to a trail that had been drawn across the carpet and into the next room. I didn't want to follow it, I was afraid of what I would see, and my body wouldn't move, I was frozen, rigid, heart beating painfully in my chest and pace quickening every second._

 _No sign of forced entry. The place, my home, it looked like hell._

 _What happened? What's going on? Oh God... Please... Let me wake up..._

 _At some point my body finally responded, and I started forward on shaky legs, feeling faint by the moment, breathing harshly and quickly._

 _Around the corner, my eyes met a mass of a crumpled figure pushed up against the wall. My breath hitched in my throat, tears came to my eyes and my body began to shake uncontrollably._

 _It wasn't human, not my mother, or my father, or my little brother... It was my dog of all things._

 _Cage's chest was ripped open, his small ribs shattered and cracked, insides spilling onto the hardwood floor, tongue hanging from his muzzle, eyes glazed and staring, fur shredded, covered in red..._

 _What.. What animal could have ripped apart my dog like that? It was... Horrifying... I..._

 _My legs just about gave out, my stomach did a complete flip and I swallowed hard to try and keep myself from retching, quickly looking away and about to hyperventilate, about to faint really..._

 _"Mom...? D-dad...? Conner...?" I called breathlessly, attention turning away from Cage and toward the stairs. Everything was dark at the top, I strained my eyes to try and make anything out._

 _First what happened at school... And now this...? What the hell is going on...?_

 _I started forward up the steps slowly, hands trembling as I grapes the handrail for dear life, stepping as lightly as I could._

 _Could there be some sort of psycho in the house? Were my parents and my brother ok? Was I about to walk into some crazy murderer? Probably... That thought made me stop, my heart sinking._

 _What could I do against some madman? What could anyone in my family do? My dad, he would fight. My mom, I'm not sure... But Little Conner? He'd be easy pickings, he was helpless._

 _I started forward again, this time a little faster and a bit more brave. Conner, I needed to find Conner, if anything happened to him... I couldn't stand it._

 _The first door at the top of the stairs directly to the left was my parents bedroom, the door was slightly open._

 _My gaze locked directly onto the red stain of a hand print on the edge, the doorknob drenched in scarlet. My breathing came in a shudder, heart skipping a beat as I took a deep, shaky breath, and opened the door slowly to the dark room._

 _My scream was drowned out by a roll of thunder outside, tears running from my eyes as I stared horrified._

 _Blood, carnage, murder, destruction, gore.._

 _Mom.. Dad..._

* * *

**_Three Hours Earlier ~_**

"Hey! Echo!"

My attention snapped around when I heard someone call me by my nickname, smiling warmly as I recognized my best friend up the school hallway from me, waving and smiling in that goofy manner I absolutely loved, her red-brown hair shinning and curled slightly, hazel eyes sparkling and flawless smile. She'd given me that nickname years ago, it was a shortened version of my last name; Echoette.

Sarah waited patiently as I walked up to her, easily making my way through the crowd of students in the hallway, all on their way to their next class. Sarah had been my friend for years, we'd grown up together, we were hardly ever apart- as if we were joined at the hip. It was actually sort of odd that we got along as well as we did, since she and I were in a completely different class based on demeanor and personality.

Sarah was very popular with everyone at school, she was beautiful too and had the most cheerful and kind personality I had ever seen. Everyone loved her, and she was good at making friends- something I rather lacked in. She always dressed her best, she did her hair, she cared about her appearance, and she was so good at everything. She was an ace student, hardworking and just so good at anything an everything she could ever want. She had a talent for being talented.

Me on the other hand? I was average, I didn't have the amazing personality, the beautiful figure, her sense of style, her smarts, her talent for anything. I got Bs and Cs in all my classes, and I was very much alone for the most part. I was shy, painfully so- I had a hard time talking to anyone, so most people didn't know me, and they never would. I would probably be that one kid who always sat alone in the corner for the rest of my life. I don't dress to impress like Sarah does, not with my simple jeans, black tank top and hoodie over that, the black converse, straight dark brown hair, green eyes, and little to no makeup. I didn't have the figure she had either, I wasn't fat, I was skinny- no muscle, no rounded hips, a small bust, no hourglass figure.

Not that I'm complaining. I'm content, I don't nessecarily care what I look like, I have a best friend who I loved and who loved me back. School wasn't too hard and life at home was pleasant, my parents were easy on me and I loved my little brother Conner- who was just about eleven now.

And what was more. I was coming up on my last year in High School now, I was already 18, turning 19 in a few months, and I wasn't stressed about life after all of this. Part of my rather laid back attitude, nothing hardly ever stressed me out too much- and I prided myself on how well I tended to handle stressful situations.

Life was good. It really was, and looking at Sarah's smiling face I was just happier. She made me happy, somehow, always.

"Come on, Mrs. Moore will be pissed if you're late to class again." Sarah smirked as I reached her. I rolled my eyes a bit and huffed, I usually got along with all my teachers, but that woman... Ugh, she just aggravates me to no end, and the feeling is mutual for the both of us.

"I don't know what her problem is, its not like I'm harming her if I show up a few minutes late." I growled, following Sarah as she lead the way. "And besides! I was only late once. Once for Christ sake, she acts like I killed her favorite bunny or something..." Sarah chuckled a little and shook her head at me, eyes twinkling in amusement.

"Well, be nice to her." Sarah said gently. "I don't want you to get detention for, well, being good old stubborn you around her." I huffed again and she giggled, "And remember, we're on Block Schedule this week- so we're in her class for two and a half hours." Sarah said lightly and I sighed heavily,

"Don't remind me... At least this is the last class for today." I was looking forward to going home, I was tired. I did my best to hide it, but the past few days I had always woken up more exhausted than I was the day before. It was odd though, because usually that never happened, I was always refreshed and ready to go, but now I felt drained, my body was heavy and Class was torture- I couldn't pay attention, nothing was getting through.

I figured I was getting sick or something, and hoped it would pass soon.

Sarah and I came into class side by side, taking our seats near the back of the room two minutes before the bell. I noticed Mrs. Moore glance up at me when she noticed I walked in, and I swear I saw her feign a look of astonishment, as if she was shocked I was in class on time.

 _Bitch..._ I grumbled silently, I wouldn't ever say it out loud, but unless Mrs. Moore could somehow read minds, I was free to think what I like.

I listened silently as Sarah started talking about this book she'd read recently, did I mention she was a huge geek? It was amusing really, somewhere in between I zoned out because suddenly- I felt like someone was watching me.

My eyes left Sarah and locked on to the gaze of who was staring at me, and it was Mrs. Moore. I blinked once, averting my gaze and looking back after a moment to check if she was still looking- and my heart skipped a beat,

For a split second, I swear to God her usually brown eyes were suddenly... Black, a shiver ran up my spine. But they weren't black, I mean... They aren't, they are brown, I was seeing brown as I held her gaze for a few seconds and let my eyes fall to the desk in front of me. I must have imagined it, and I must be more tired than I thought I was.

"Echo?" Sarah said, catching my attention once I realized I had been ignoring her, she had noticed too, because she was frowning a little, eyes glittering with annoyance. I smiled at her in apology,

"Sorry, you were saying?" I invited, she opened her moth to continue but the bell rang in the next instant and she didn't say anything.

"Quiet down Class," Mrs. Moore muttered, in that low, bossy tone I loathed. Those who had been chatting shut up and all eyes turned to her, the projector flipped on and the PowerPoint for the day's Lecture on the Government Legislative Branches appeared on the board next to Mrs. Moore. That was her usual, lecture the entire class while we were supposed to take notes.

In other words, boring. Very, very, boring.

There was a conjoined shuffling of papers and zippers being pulled as everyone pulled their stuff out and the lecture began, I didn't bother. I did have a few talents, and one of them was the fact that I could remember nearly everything a teacher lectured on, so I didn't see the point in jotting down pointless notes, I just put my back pack on the desk in front of me and sat in silence.

My eyelids drooped about 30 min. in, my exhaustion suddenly intensifying to the point I wasnt hearing anything about what was being taught, and instead my mind wandered into a drowsy state far off in some obscure corner of my mind.

I wondered what Conner was doing, of maybe he was just as bored as I was. Then I wondered if my Mom and Dad were home from work yet, they usually got home before either Conner or I did... Cage, my dog, he was probably asleep on the couch downstairs, as was the usual. That dog was so lazy...

Black eyes flared across my mind. What an odd thing, people didn't have black eyes... Where did I even come up with that? Creepy...

My attention snapped the present when the bell went off and the incessent rambling of Mrs. Moore cut off. She glanced to the clock, the time reading 2:30, exactly an hour left of class to go, seeing as how I'd apparently been sitting in class for an hour and a half already, had a I really been so zoned out, time went by that fast?

"Take your ten minute break."

I got up immediately, glad to have the chance to move and maybe wake up a bit more, I had started to doze off, because my eyes had fallen closed some pint along the way and the bell had caused me to open them. I noticed Sarah didn't get up when I did and I looked to her, she waved me off with a smile.

"Go, I don't need to go." She murmured, before smirking. "Just don't be late getting back here, ok?" She teased and I chuckled a little.

"Yeah, yeah.." I waved over my shoulder as I walked out the door and into the hallway, placing my hands in my hoodie pocket and taking a deep breath. I turned left, which was opposite the way everyone else in the hall was going. There was a bathroom on either end of the hall, but one was smaller than the other and no one used it, which meant everyone used the other one, and though it was larger, it was always packed. So, it was no surprise when the people in the hall thinned and no one was in the bathroom when I got there.

I splashed some water from the sink into my face, hoping the chill would wake me up as exhaustion continued to weigh down on me, I was starting to feel really groggy.

That's when the lights overhead flickered a little, earning my attention as I blinked in surprise. That was odd, the lights had never done that before, and to be honest.. It gave me a bad feeling. Not the lights themselves I'm sure, but suddenly everything just seemed to slow to a sudden stop, like the air wasnt moving anymore and the humm of feet walking down the hallway outside suddenly disappeared.

The exhaustion bumped up to a sudden bout of lightheadedness that made me unbelievably unsteady, I held the edge of the sink for support as my vision swam and head spun. It almost felt as if some invisible wave of force had run through me and taken all my energy away, making my body tingle and stomach flip, a cold falling over me- I saw myself go pale in the mirror, and my heart sped up in odd, uneven beats, body starting to shake, I felt weak, I felt... Sick, really sick.

In the sudden silence I did hear something though. It was an odd noise, and at first I couldn't place it, and I couldn't see what made the noise either as my vision turned black in the sudden wave of weakness running through my body.

The closest I could come to describing it, was like there was a sudden rush of air being thrown up by a pair of great, flapping, _wings._

But then my mind fell away and my hold for support on the sink failed, my legs gave out and I hit the floor, I didn't see anything but black for a very, very long time.

When I finally did come too, I groaned and held my now slightly aching head, probably from the impact of hitting it on the tile floor. My vision unblurred slowly and I glanced around hastily, trying to make sense of what happened, of what happened to me. That was weird, really weird, and it was concerning. It wasn't normal to pass out like that, I started thinking I might need to go to a hospital to make sure I wasn't really ill.

I started pushing myself off the floor, grimancing a little, and my arms shaking slightly but nothing more. I didn't feel as tired, but I did feel a little faint, and for some reason there remained a pit in my stomach, cold and heavy... I felt something was wrong, beyond whatever had caused me to pass out so suddenly. I couldn't put my finger on it, everything just felt off to me.

My phone slipped from my hoodie pocket, and I paused to sit on my heels, retrieving it and glancing at the now lit up screen, I figured I'd only been out for two minutes at most, otherwise Sarah or Mrs. Moore would have come looking for me...

3:20

 _What?!_

I'd been on the floor for nearly an hour, and no one had come looking for, or found me? Not Sarah, not even bitchy Mrs. Moore?

I got to my feet quickly, jamming my phone in my hoodie pocket and leaving the restroom, hand sliding along the wall for support if I needed it, still not feeling quite well.

Why would no one have come looking for me? Maybe they thought I ditched... But Sarah couldn't believe that, I'd even left my stuff in class! What the hell is going on?!

It occured to me in the back of my mind that everything was dim, the bright colors had dulled and the sky outside the windows was suddenly turning very dark, enormous black clouds rushing in on all sides, the wind picking up, the temperature dropping.

I reached class and headed in immediately, right into the middle of Mrs. Moore's lecture. All heads turned toward me, eyes sparkling in intrigue, and I caught Serah's eyes, but she smiled a little and broke the eye contact quickly.

"May I help you?" Mrs. Moore turned to me, placid and undisturbed, she looked me over with subtle intrigue and a hint of confusion.

 _May I help you? What... What?!_

"What do you mean? Shouldn't you be snapping my head off for being so late? And why didn't anyone come looking for me?!" I replied hastily, voice rising and starting to get annoyed. Was she shitting me?

Mrs. Moore raised an eyebrow and regarded me a moment. "I'm not sure what you mean dear..." She said slowly and I stared, d-dear?!

"But- you, It's me! Thea! I was in your class just about an hour ago, you've been my teacher all freaking year, and we hate each other, remember?! What are you playing at?!" My anger and a sense of panic was starting to rise steadily, because on her face I saw real confusion.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know you.. You haven't been in my class once..." Mrs. Moore answered slowly, taking a step toward me in a cautious manner, as if she was nervous. I stepped back, astounded.

The rest of the class was staring at me, all of them just as confused and some of them nervous, most of them muttering to one another. My eyes found Sarah, she was my best friend, she would know me!

"Sarah! Please, you know me right?" I asked hopefully, looking about toward her.

Sarah looked taken aback, eyes wide and sparkling with a bit of fear and worry, she was nervous. "I-I'm sorry... But no...?" She offered quietly, my face fell, my heart dropped.

I knew when people were lying to me, I'd always been able to tell, to hear it in their voices, to see it in their eyes, faces, their reactions.

They all were truly saying they didn't know me. They were truly confused, they didn't recognize me... They didn't know me, and now they were nervous of me, because... Because they thought I was crazy.

Then I noticed that where my bag had been on the table beside my best friend was no longer there.

Could this be possible? Could there be some reason that everyone forgot about me? That Mrs. Moore didn't know I was the very student she truly didn't get along with? That she forgot all the times we'd glared at each other in class, the arguments we'd had on the side, the smart ass comments she pretended not to hear?

That my best friend, the person who was essentially my sister, that she could forget me? That she could forget the laughs we'd shared, the stories, the pain, the stress, the fun?

 _They all forgot me...?_

It was at this point I thought I was dreaming, that I had fallen asleep in class after all, and suddenly I'd be pulled away by Mrs. Moore snapping my name. That maybe I was still passed out on the floor in the restroom, this was a hullucination of whatever had made me pass out in the first place.

"Look, I'm going to call the office and have them send someone down here to help you." Mrs. Moore told me in a soothing tone, which sounded utterly foreign to me. "Why don't you just sit down, alright?" She suggested, but I didn't hardly hear her.

 _Conner, Mom, Dad..!_

If everyone at school forgot who I was, what of them? Could my own family forget who I am, or that I even existed? Was that possible..?

If Sarah could forget me, it was possible, and the idea made my heart ache, the panic rise.

I whipped around and ran straight out of class, Mrs. Moore calling after me and a resounding wave of gasps and fervent muttering erupting as I left.

I had to get home, my heart was sinking every minute, my mind racing, heart pounding. A cold unlike any other was engulfing me, making me shiver involuntarily, a cold sweat appearing on my brow, I had probably grown paler and paler since passing out, but I had to get home.

I thrust the doors of the school open and sprinted down the steps, down the next street, never stopping, never faltering, always going faster, the storm around me starting to hit a head, wind whipping into my face and blowing back my hair wildly.

How could I have been forgotten? It couldn't be possible, nothing can just make everyone forget about me like that, what sort of force could make everyone I knew forget the time I'd been with them? To make my best friend forget me, to make my teacher forget, and not know, that I had been her student all year? To make all the other kids in my class forget me? Probably the whole school?

 _This is insane, its impossible. I have to be dreaming. I have to be... Let me wake up, please!_

The rain began to pour down as a flash of white lightning arced across the sky, just as my house came into veiw, the ice cold droplets starting to hit my face. The wind rushed past my ears, making it hard to hear anything, and the land about me was thrown into utter shadow, a shadow that had been deepening with the sense of dread filling me up since leaving school.

I barged into the unlocked door of my house, noting that my parents cars were in the driveway, but my car wasn't. I wanted to believe that was because I'd left it at school, but my panicked mind couldn't remember if I had driven to school this morning or simply walked. Could my car have dissapeared like my bag?

I hoped they would know me. I hoped this was a dream. How could my life end up like this? It couldn't! It has to be a dream!

I came to a halt when I saw the overturned furniture around, and tried the light on the front room and found it wasn't working. I walked forward toward the living room, to see the red on the carpet, to follow the trail of blood to where Cage had been ripped apart.

All the way up the stairs, toward my parents bedroom. That feeling of dread never lessened, and I was starting to lose myself to fear and panic.

The scream torn from my throat echoed in the unusual silence of my home, the thunder booming overhead drowning it out as I stumbled backward in terror, letting tears stream down my face, as I took in the blood, carnage, murder, destruction, gore..

As I saw my parents filleted in their bed, jaws ripped and unhinged in an eternal scream of terror and agony, their ribs split open, chests torn apart, hands and feet chained to the bed to keep them still. Their eyes were bleeding, trickles of red running down their cheeks, red orbs staring at the ceiling... Where their hearts were pinned with nails, a five point star drawn on the roof, with words of some strange language painted in their blood upon the wall, accompanied by dozens of strange symbols and the like. Numerous blades and kitchen knives stuck up from places all over their bodies, skin shredded, bruised... They were cold, they were... They were...

"O-oh my... God..." I stammered, turning away and falling to my knees, gasping for air and body shaking like a leaf, eyes stinging with tears and mind racing, that image would forever be implanted in my mind, my stomach flipped, I gagged a little but nothing came up, I could only sit there on the floor, feeling myself begin to grow colder and colder, a part of my soul felt like it was cracking.

"Echo..?"

My head snapped up, my heart leaping when I recognized the voice, the voice of my little brother, and he said my name!

The sudden surge of hope and happiness suddenly gave way to horror, my heart seemed to stop all together, my breath hitched in my throat, I couldn't breath, I was suffocating.

Conner stood in front of me, his familiar mess of sandy hair, the same freckles, his clothes drenched in red, a large knife from the kitchen held in his hand, complexion pale, his once green eyes were engulfed in black, no warmth in his features, his voice had been soft when he said my name, almost innocent- but the dark, twisted grin spread across his face betrayed the evil intent flowing off of him, the malice.

My eyes went wide in utter horror, fingers trembling as I did my best to say something, anything.

"C-conner...?" I struggled to get out, the evil grin grew a bit wider, the knife in his bloody hand glinted as a flash of lighting went across the sky outside. Everything screamed at me that it wasn't Conner, I knew it wasn't... This was something else, something too dark, too evil, to ever be my brother.

"That's right, Echo!" He giggled, I shuddered, edging back a little. "Mom and Dad can't play with me anymore, now its your turn!" His grip about the knife tightened and a pang of fear hit me. "Play with me!" He giggled in a high pitched, maniac way, as he brought knife forward and I leaned away as fast I could manage, gasping in pain as the edge of the blade sliced through my hoodie and across my upper left arm.

I stumbled back, head shaking furiously as Conner advanced,

"N-no! S-stop!" I gasped, Conner just smiled and kept coming at me, this time I rolled sideways to try and avoid being driven backward and cornered in my parents room. I managed it, but Conner lunged toward me in the middle of the action and dragged the blade across and over the top of my right shoulder and down my back, the blade digging deep before I got out of range and yelped a little at the pain.

I scrambled to my feet and bolted down the hallway that lead toward the rest of the rooms in the house, the last door leading to my dad's office, it was where he kept all his files, his computer, and a number of antique things he had been collecting in the course of his life. It was also where he kept this odd looking knife he'd gotten from his dad, it'd been there in a glass case up on the bookshelf for as long as I could remember.

I ran in and slammed the door behind me, locking it and running toward the shelf. My hands fumbled to get a grip on the locked glass box that held the old jagged knife, along the blade was inscribed with various images of some kind I'd never been able to identify, the wooden handle was laced with silver filgre, strips of the precious metal fixed into swirling designs.

I grabbed the box and smashed the glass against the side of the desk, hissing as the shattered pieces dug into the flesh of my hand and I quickly grabbed the hilt of the knife, blinking in surprise at how sure my grip became as I took up the blade, my head snapped around when I heard Conner start pounding on the door.

"Echo! Open up! I wanna play!"

 _No, no..._ I needed to push past him somehow, get out of the house, leave... He was trying to kill me, my brother was trying to kill me...

No, not my brother. That wasn't him, Conner couldn't have killed my parents... He wouldn't ever want to kill me. That was not my brother, he wasn't there anymore.

But what if I couldn't get past him? What if I couldn't get out? He would kill me... I couldn't let that happen, and to make sure he didn't kill me... I'd have to...

My body started shaking uncontrollably at the thought, I shook my head furiously, my breaths coming in rapid succession, heart pounding.

I couldn't do that! Even if it wasn't Conner, it was him. His body, his face, I couldn't do that to my brother, all I ever wanted to do for him was keep him safe. I would have done anything for him, I would have died for him- it was my job as a big sister, it had always been my job... And I've failed.

"Please... Please... Don't make me do this... Oh God, please don't make me do this..." I muttered the words to myself over and over again, trembling more and more with each word, getting colder and colder,

The door swung open, the frame splintering as Conner kicked it in with inhuman strength, his black eyes glittering with malice as he saw me, grinning in triumph when he saw I was cornered.

I lunged forward, thrusting my elbow into his neck to try and shove him against the doorframe, but my attempt was weak, or maybe he was too strong, because he barely budged and he shoved the knife at me, lodging it into my side as I let out a scream of agony, he twisted the knife once and grabbed the back of my neck, flinging me forward to hit the floor, blood welling up from the wound immediately.

"Nice try Echo." Conner chuckled, slowly drawing his tongue along the knife, my blood staining his teeth and mouth red. I shuddered, gasping as I held a hand to the stab wound and struggled to back away down the hallway, toward the stairs. "You should try a little harder, I want to have as much fun with you as I can."

"Please... I don't want to do this..." I hissed, Conner walking after me in a leisurely manner as I struggled to move backward.

"Oh I know! Mommy and Daddy didn't want to either, that's why they were no fun!" Conner chuckled gleefully. The tears rolled down my face silently, from pain and fear, but mostly from utter greif... How did all of this happen anyway? Why me?

"Please..." I murmured again, hand still clutching my father's odd knife. Conner grinned, shaking his head.

"Begging won't help you." He lunged at me again, I closed my eyes, my mind was screaming at me to react, to defend myself, to survive, but my heart couldn't get over the fact that this was my little brother... I couldn't hurt my little brother..!

 _I couldn't... I can't..._

 _ **Move!**_

Some deep, gravely voice in my head yelled in that instant, my conscience I guess... The part of me that wanted to live, to fight, to survive.

My body wouldn't move though, at least, not in any way entirely helpful. I managed to block a thrust to my chest by shoving my arm into the knife and pushing it away, growling as the blade dug into my arm- but that small reaction left me open to a kick to the stomach, I coughed out in pain, the breath driven from my lungs, as I was sent flying back over the stairs behind me, ribs cracking as i hit each step, rolling straight into the wall across the stairs, vision blurred and body on fire, wheezing as I struggled for proper breath.

The footfalls of Conner as he came down each step slowly reached my attention, I struggled to sit up, I had somehow managed to keep a hold of the blade, my hand wrapped around it instinctively in an iron tight grip.

"You're not trying hard enough Echo." Conner muttered, "I hate it when people don't try their best." He growled.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and watched in calm amusement as I struggled to stand, off balance and unsteady from a large amount of continuing blood loss and the beating I was taking, not to mention the emotional struggle I was having.

I knew what I needed to do, of course I knew... But did I have the strength to do it?

What was more... If I did it, if I fight him, if I won... I'd never walk away from that in one piece, I wasn't going to ever, not with what had already happened, not with what I was seeing.

 ** _Fight. Survive. Live._**

I shook my head in despair, the tears rolling faster now as I gripped the blade tighter, forcing myself into an offensive stance as I met Conner's black eyes. He smiled when he saw the resistance, the fire, erupt in my eyes, he was happy I had finally snapped, that I was going to fight.

 _I didn't want to fight. I had to..._

"I'm so sorry, Conner..." I whispered, "I'm so sorry..."

"Sorry to break it to ya Echo, but Conner isn't here anymore." He chuckled in reply, I didn't take that to heart though, as I slowly turned the blade I held over in my hand, the tears starting to stream faster as some strange energy started to bubble inside me, the pain of the knife wounds dulled, but I only felt colder and colder.

 _I was actually doing this... I was actually going to kill... My brother..._

"... I was supposed to protect you... I failed... I am so sorry..."

Conner let out a laugh. A cold, evil laugh. "Didn't you hear me? Conner isn't here anymore you stupid girl!"

He hadn't hardly anytime to react once I jumped at him in full force, swiping the blade out before me as he jumped away to narrowly miss it, his fist came up to land a blow to the stab wound in my side, I gasped, but swung back around with the blade and managed to slice across the side of his neck, leaving a shallow mark that glowed orange a mere moment. Conner's black eyes widened in shock and momentary pain, but I barely stopped before I swung out again, an aimed blow with my leg that had enough force to send him crashing to the floor, my body moving in motion, in reaction, in such a perfect way that it was almost as if I had practiced this before.

My body knew what to do, all on its own, it was being driven by that foreign energy inside me so suddenly, and when Conner hit the floor on his back, I dropped to my knees in an instant and thrust the blade into his heart with both hands. The flesh around the wound glowed and he let out a scream of pain, before his eyes glowed orange with golden pulses of what seemed like electricity, and he was dead.

I hadn't the strength to pull the blade back out, because suddenly I could feel the cracks that had been growing across my soul suddenly shatter in the most painful, agonizing way. A chill fell over me, I shook, I gasped in frantic, heart wrenching breaths, pale as death as I suddenly felt so very empty.

 _Completely empty. Broken._

The tears that had been flowing didn't stop, as I sat there with my head bowed and eyes shut tight, suffocating as I struggled to breath. I couldn't move, I didn't dare move, I stayed there for what felt like years, as the storm outside continued to rage on, I was numb, numb to everything but the pain tearing out at my heart, muttering over and over again;

"I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry... I love you... I'm so sorry... I'm sorry..."

* * *

 **Please follow, fav, and Review! Thoughts? ^^**

 **This is not the 1st Fanfic I have written, just the first on this account. I write FanFics for a few animes, and I do some Imagines on Tumblr for SPN. That is where I started writing anything for SPN before now~**

 **I'd love to hear what you thought of this first chapter! Thank you for giving it a try!**


	2. Chapter 2- What They Call 'Insanity'

**What They Call 'Insanity'**

 **Disclaimer: I Do Not Own SPN or its characters, I DO however own all my OCs, Ideas, and the story.**

* * *

 _"The small town of Gildsten Nevada remains in a state of horror after the events of a most terrifying murder of the family of Janet, Alex, and Conner Echoette just four days ago. Where the small family of three was brutally murdered by a mentally unstable young girl who seems to have an obscene obsession with the acult, and other statanic beliefs._

 _Four days ago on the evening of September 23, the Echoette family were assaulted in their home and killed in what authorities believe to be a Satanic Ritual of sacrifice. Symbols and drawings of Satanic memorabilia were found within the house, and most specifically in the bedroom of the two parents where they were chained to the bed and endured torture before having major organs removed from their bodies. Their son, Conner Echoette, who was eleven at the time, was stabbed in the heart after struggling against the assailant._

 _The young girl responsible was found at the scene of the crime, wounded and in serious mental dissarray, holding the weapon that took the life of the young boy. When police arrived on the scene, after having been called in by a neighbor who believed they had heard screaming coming from the Echoette residence, the young girl, who claimed to be a member of the Family she had just murdered, hysterically told the police that she had been forgotten by everyone and that Conner had been a Demon and murdered his parents before attempting to murder her. She claimed to have acted in self defense._

 _Mrs. Moore, a history teacher at the Gildsten High School reported having spoken to the girl as she appeared in her class unexpectedly, as Mrs. Moore remarks, the girl seemed 'extremely troubled and frantic' as she insisted she had been a member of the class the entire year, which is not the case as the teachers, school and students have no recollection of her ever attending school there. In fact there is no record of the girl anywhere in the town, as her true identity remains a mystery._

 _As the girl, who officials have dubbed 'Echo' as she calls herself, was clearly in a unstable mental state, she was declared criminally insane and transported to a psychiatric ward in northern Nevada, the charge of murder was dropped once she was officially labeled mentally insane. Psychiatrists will keep 'Echo' in a maximum security psychiatric ward for the rest of her foreseeable future, experts do not believe she has any sense of what she did, or what happened that night- but that instead that she was acting out in the middle of a violent psychotic breakdown, for which she has turned to blame events on satanic and supernatural forces._

 _There will be a service held for the family of Echoette in town hall, before they are cremated and set to rest as stated in their wills, in the event of their deaths. A memorial will be built in their memory, and the town of Gildsten will never forget what happened, or the horrific tragedy that occurred in the Echoette home."_

* * *

 _"Echo." The balding man in the white lab coat murmured as he sat across from me, light bouncing off the glasses on the end of his nose. "Why do you call yourself that?"_

 _"... My best friend Sarah gave me that name... Its short for my last name, Echoette.." I mumbled quietly,_

 _"You are not related to the Echoette's," he replied dryly, but gently. "They never had a daughter, you were not a part of their family."_

 _"I was... But everyone forgot about me... They just... Forgot I existed..."_

* * *

I could hardly move as the police stormed into my house, as I sat there, my fingers curled around the knife still sticking from Conner's chest, head hanging limp and shoulders hunched.

I was so cold, so empty... _So broken_.

I hardly heard what they said, as they demanded I let go of the knife and place my hands on my head. They had their guns pointed at me, the wailing of sirens fought the sound of wind and rumbling thunder.

I couldn't move, I sat in a pool of my own blood, my muscles dead, lungs aching, heart broken, soul shattered.

".. I didn't... Everyone... Forgot me... And Conner... He was... He was possessed... By a Demon... He tried to kill me..." I mumbled softly, voice hoarse from muttering apology for hours,

Why I called him a Demon, the notion appeared in my mind all on its own. That's somewhere, in some small, dark part of myself, I knew that the thing that had taken my brother, that had been a Demon... It had to have been..

One of the officers thrust me backward into my back forcefully, I yelped at the pain of being shoved so harshly, but I hadn't the strength to struggle, it was a miracle I was even conscious with all the blood I had lost.

They cuffed me, it was pointless though. I wasn't trying to fight.

Two paramedics came in, and they carted me outside on a stretcher, a group of police following them toward the ambulance as the rest checked the house.

It was dark outside, the flash of red and blue against the clouds hurt my eyes, my ears rung slightly at the sirens, hardly hearing them over the haze of my mind, starting to fall back and forth between black and wakefulness.

There were throngs of people behind a police line, people I knew, but all of them looking at me with no recognition. They didn't know me... And honestly, I wasn't sure I knew myself anymore.

The voices of the crowds, the paramedics, the police, the wail of the sirens, the rumble of thunder overhead, the whistle of wind, all of it was nearly dead to me... _Everything._

Everything until I heard the rush of hair, and the fluttering of what I could only guess were _wings._

 _The same noise_ I had heard just before everything was turned upside down.

 _The last noise_ I heard before darkness overtook me, and I left behind the one world I had ever known.

* * *

 _White walls, white clothes, white sheets, white floors... White everything_. Everything expect my mind, which remained in a perpetual cycle of reliving that night over and over in horrific realty, and a profound darkness that covered my entire being.

I was alone. I was broken.

My mind and soul had been shattered that night, a part of my humanity had been stripped away the minute I set foot in my house, the minute I found my parents, the second I plunged that blade into Conner's chest.

I was falling apart, losing my mind, my sanity, everything. Everything in the world around me had fallen into nothingness, my life had become nothing, I was nothing... Just a murderer, a criminal, a psycho, that no one knew, no one remembered.

Nothing. Empty. Cold. Broken. Shattered.

I was left to endure the memory of what I did, of what I lost. To continually fall away, to become an empty shell, a lesser excuse of a person.

Always asking, _why?_

Why me? Why had my life been torn up like that? Turned upside down, broken down? Why had it been me, to have to see that, endure that, _do_ that?

For all my questions, I had no answers. Endless asking, no reason for why, no reason I could see.

All I could see was how dim the world was around me, how cold and horrifying it could be. How terrible life was, and now I knew... I knew there were darker things in the world than I could ever have imagined. Things that had lay in wait in the shadows, things that no one believed were real... But I knew. I'd seen it, I lived it.

They thought I was insane. And maybe that was true, but at least I was telling the _truth._

I could very well be insane, but who could blame me? After everything that had happened in the course of a few hours, how fast my life had been torn apart, how badly I had been broken... Anyone had the right to be a little insane, and I should be no exception.

But I was still empty. I wasn't whole anymore.

In that psychiatric ward, I spent my days in silence, in darkness, withering away, hardly speaking, barely eating. Any sleep I managed was always riddled with nightmares, blood, horror, death. My body grew weaker, my complexion paler, hair darker, eyes dull, I looked like death, and I couldn't care.

All I could feel was pain, sadness, guilt, fear.

Everyone hated me, the nurses, the doctors. They never let me with other patients, they never pitied me- because all they could see was the maniac who had butchered a family, stabbed a child, and even ripped the hearts out of two people and nailed the organs to the ceiling.

Maybe I deserved that, I _had_ killed Conner. Even if it hadn't been him in entirety, like that deep voice of my conscience sometimes reminded me, but I couldn't get rid of the hole shoving that blade into his chest had left in my heart.

From time to time I thought I saw black eyes in the gazes of the doctors or nurses, I felt the cold pit in my heart harden, my nerves rise. Could there be more Demons watching me? I couldn't be sure, because my mind was so frail and ripped apart it could have been playing tricks on me.

Every once in awhile, one of the doctors would come in and have a discussion with me. They were very much all the same;

 _"Why do you believe you were a member of the Echoette family?"_

 _"Because I was."_

 _"Why do you think Demons are real?"_

 _"They are... Conner was taken by one, I can feel it in my heart. They're real.."_

 _"How are you today?"_

 _"Broken."_

Days turned to weeks. Weeks became months, and eventually all sense of time I held faded away to nothing, it became irrelevant, I didn't care to know, there wasn't a point. I would be here for the rest of my life, forever labeled as insane- insane because they couldn't believe Demons were real, that it was possible an entire town's memory had been wiped of my existence. Because everything I said could not possibly be true.

I was the only one who knew it was real.

The world went on around me, away from me, as I remained tucked in my own cell. From time to time I would hear things about mass weather storms, maybe a new song that was trending, a missing kid in New York... But eventually all of that stopped too, it became irrelevant, and everyone went back to their lives, everyone who had a life to get back to.

At some point I started to forget the faces of my classmates, of my neighbors... The image of my dog Cage became blurred, Sarah became a fragment... Everything... I was starting to lose it all...

One thing never escaped me, the one thing I had heard before I passed out in the bathrrom, before everyone forgot me, before my parents were killed, before Conner...

 _Wings._ The rush of air from the beat of feathers.

The more I thought on it, I was more convinced it was wings I had heard. But wings of what? I'd never seen anything.

That was pushed to the back of my mind after awhile, I knew I would never know what it was. So why drive myself insane thinking about it?

Well, more insane than I already was.

* * *

"Today we check in with North side Psychiatric Facility in northern Nevada, as the date of September 23 draws near, nearly three and a half years after the tragedy that befell the small family of three, where Parents Janet and Alex Echoette, and their son Conner Echoette, were brutally murdered in their home by a young girl declared mentally insane while being tried for murder.

We have come to conduct an interview of the Doctors who have been looking after the girl who committed the crime, Echo as she calls herself. Nearly four years ago all interviews of the subject were prohibited, we come today hoping we will be given leave to question Echo and perhaps find out why she murdered the Echoette family, and why she chose to blame it on 'Demons'."

The reporter, a tall young girl with blonde hair, stopped her overview from where she was standing before the Facility, the camera man stopped rolling as they prepared to head into the building, toward me.

I could see them from the barred window in my cell, they had allowed it to be opened to let in some fresh air- that made it easy to hear what the woman was saying.

It looked like the news crew of a local college campus, all of them were young and they gave off a faint air of inexperience in the way the blonde slowly asked if the camera had stopped rolling before she started talking hastily in an excited and exasperated manner.

"Can you believe this? We might actually come face to face with an actual murderer! A maniac no less!" She breathed hastily to the young man holding the camera, who nodded a little and looked over toward the building, frowning nervously. He didn't seem as excited for the outing as his blonde friend did. "I can't believe no one is all over this!"

I could though. My case had only been relevant for a month or two after it happened, before the next celebrity scandel took the front page, the next drought, storm- a crash in the stock market, whatever. The world couldn't care less about some out of the way small-town in Nevada, where some crazy girl just happened to murder three people. People died everyday, and you'd be surprised how many people died in strange ways that seemed even more satanic than what happened that night to me.

The world only really cared about a few things in all reality, and all of them trivial, unimportant. Money, fame, glory, all of it didn't matter as far as I was concerned. How anyone could think what a famous actress was doing in her spare time was any more important than the earthquake in some third world country, or that the arrest on drinking charges of this political official meant more than the tragic genocide of an entire town in the name of God, how any of that was ever thought to be more important, that would never make any sense to me. And they called me Insane.

I watched as the two young people made their way toward the door and inside, I wasn't sure if the doctors here would let them in to see me, they hadn't given me much leniency even though I hadn't been violent or erratic the entirety of the time I'd been here.

And had it really been nearly four years? It felt like longer, but all sense of time had eluded me and blurred into one long nightmare filled with cold, pain and despair. I couldn't know how long it really had been, and I didn't really care on the matter either.

For the interview that the two would have with my doctors, I imagined it would be quite simple in reality. They probably always said the same thing when they were questioned,

 _"Miss Echo has remained a very placid and voluntary patient here at the facility. She still clings to the facade and belief that she belonged to the Echoette family in which she killed, that she was their daughter and attended school in Gildsten all her life- though no record of her has ever been found to prove such a thing. She also still insists that she did not murder Janet and Alex Echoette, that rather Conner Echotte had been 'possessed' by a demon and she acted in self defense to preserve her life, and that she was forced to take Conner's life._

 _While she has been here, she has never been violent with any of the staff, and has been very compliant to all questions and examinations. She is one of our most manageable patients, despite the fact that her rehabilitation does not seem likely."_

 _"If she's never been violent, why has she been kept in isolation all this time?"_

 _"We believe that social interventions with other people may have caused her mental breakdown on the night of September 23rd, that lead to the death of the Echoette family. She remains in a very fragile state of mind, plagued by constant night terrors that affect her mental stability and eventually started affecting her physical health. She has been kept isolated from the others in attempt to keep her as healthy and mentally stable as possible."_

I could not describe how many times that small conversation on the part of my doctors had run through my mind. It was what I believed they told others, all those who asked questions, it was strange how well I had come to know how they all thought, what they thought about me and why I was 'insane'. Solitude is very good for contemplating things.

I moved away from the window and sat on the edge of my bed, placing the small sketchbook and pencil in my hand in my lap, tapping the pencil against the cover every once in awhile, my dull eyes fixed to the door, waiting... Always waiting, in silence, alone. Forever.

After half an hour, the handle turned and in came one of the large burly men that served as security here, an Orderly. I'd seen him many times, he never said much and neither did I, so everything was always silent between us, just small cues and gestures he gave for what he wanted from me.

In behind him came the blonde girl and her friend with the camera,

"These two would like to have a small interview with you, Echo." The Orderly, I think Ray was his name, said in a gruff voice and I blinked slowly. "Doctor Peirce has given them leave to do so." He gave me a pointed stare and stepped aside to stand next to the door, it was a look that I understood completely.

 _Don't try anything or I will not hesitate to apprehend you._

It wasn't really necessary for him to give me such a look, as I'm sure he knew- still the warning had to be put in the open.

Ray waved the two behind him in and the door closed softly. The blonde gave me a hesitant smile and took a seat up not far from the bed, that was where the doctors sat when they came to talk with me. Her friend with the camera stopped back a ways, eyeing me cautiously and tense.

"Hello, my name is Bridget and that there is Cameron. We are students at the college near here and we were hoping for an interveiw with you on what whappened, as an assignment for our journalism class." The blonde told me in a soft, cheery manner that suddenly reminded me so much of Sarah, my heart ached a moment and I ignored it. I couldn't do anything but stare at her, eyes dull, expression blank, tired, frayed.

"We researched all we could on what happened, but I was hoping you could give us your version of the story first hand?" She asked, looking hopeful. My side of the story? I had already told my side, I'd been telling people this whole time and no one believed it because it was so utterly impossible. I had thought it was impossible when it happened to me, and I lived it.

"You wouldn't believe me." I mumbled softly, voice weak from not using it very much. There wouldn't be much point, because no on ever believed me, never.

Bridget looked shocked I had actually spoken to her, before she looked slightly thrilled. I wondered if I was what she had imagined, would any one who didn't know what I did be able to see and recognize me as a murderer? As dangerous? I doubted that, I had wasted away into a broken shell of a human being, I had no fight left in me, not inclination for action or violence, I was content to let myself waste away until there was nothing left.

Because once upon a time, I had been very much like her. I had a life, a family, I had friends, I went to school, everything was bliss. My life has been normal, and then suddenly it was ripped up and thrown around, turned upside down and then shattered.

Could she even imagine what that was like? If she had been in my position, when everyone suddenly forgot her name, forgot who she was, and she was shunned, left alone, a nobody. If those people she loved had been ripped apart and she was forced to kill someone she held dear to her heart, what would she have done? Who would she be now?

My guess is she'd be just as broken and empty as I was, she'd probably be sitting in some Mental Hospital somewhere, alone and forgotten. _Just like me..._

"Still, we'd like to know." Bridget told me without hesitation, she seemed so determined. Her eyes fell from my own to the small sketchbook in my hand, "What's that?"

"Sketchbook." I mumbled lowly,

"You draw? What's in it?" She asked, her interest peaked. I hesitated a minute, before slowly handing it toward her. She took it from me and opened it eagerly,

She didn't seem to have been expecting the type drawings on the inside, the trees and landscapes I had come up with, the abstract art of lines and shapes, the drawing of my old home, of my old car, the sketches of Cage I'd made to try and keep him in my memory, the portraits of my parents, of Conner, of Sarah. I had to draw them, or my already fuzzy memory of them would be lost forever as my mind continued to fall apart in here. She flipped through them, eyes wide and astonished,

Of those few talents I had had before everything went to shit, drawing was one of them, though I would never admit to it. I had never thought of myself as being particularly good at it, but I wasn't horrible either. Sarah had loved the things I drew, another pang of sadness hit me and I winced inwardly.

Bridget came toward the back part of the book, where her searching stopped on the page where I had drawn my father's Old Blade, the one I had used to kill Conner, as best I could remember, the silver swirls in the handle, the odd symbols along the side. Her eyes went up toward me for a split second, before she looked away and turned the page- where the next few pages in that book were filled with countless wings, of feathers and spans in all different sizes.

Maybe she thought she was going to find some more statanic depictions, scenes of murder and death- and she was dissapointed because there was none. What I drew was, in all standards, fairly normal. Not the scratches of a madwoman, not the drabble of a truly insane person.

She paused on the wings, not surprising I supposed, I must have drawn about a hundred or so. I couldn't get the sound of flapping wings, the rush of air, the very noise that had sounded just before my world went to utter hell, out of my head. I tried every style, every length, every size, I was sort of obsessed I suppose.

"Do you.. Like birds..?" Bridget asked slowly,

"No, its not that... Its just a thought." I mumbled back, she blinked. "Something I thought I heard awhile back. I don't think it was a bird... I don't know what it was. I didn't see anything, just heard the rustle of flapping wings." I shrugged slightly, Bridget looked over the depictions a bit longer before handing the sketchbook back to me.

"Maybe it wasn't a bird." She murmured,

"What else would it be?" I sighed and she smiled faintly,

"Maybe the wings of an Angel?" She suggested, and for the first time I noticed the cross pendent hanging from the chain around her neck.

 _An Angel?_

I snorted a little hotly, grimancing as cold fire started to rise in me.

 _An Angel? From God?_

 _There was no such thing,_ if there was, nothing would have ended the way it had, if God was really there, how could he or any of his Angels let what happened to me, happen?

If there had been an Angel anywhere near me, how could they have watched as everything shattered around me? As my existence was erased from the minds of everyone I knew? As my parents were tortured and killed, my brother possessed? How could they sit back and watch Conner try to murder me, watch me be forced to kill my brother, or be killed myself?

How could they watch me as my soul shattered that night? As I suddenly broke, became empty? Let me rot here, fade away to nothing?

They couldn't. They wouldn't. So they weren't there, they weren't real.

I couldn't count how many times I had begged God not to make me do anything that happened, how many times I pleaded that it wasn't real, that it was a dream, how many times I prayed and prayed and prayed for everything to go back the way it was, when I was happy.

I had begged Him countless times that night as Conner came at me, I had cried out to Him as I sat there with the blade in my little brother's chest.

There was no God, and there were certainly no Angels.

That look of anger in my eyes gave Bridget pause, and she flinched a little at the angry scoff I let out, voice suddenly filled with anger and disdain.

"There are no Angels." I growled, if they were there, they were bastards. If they were there, they would had to have let all of that happen, they would have let my life become the hell it was now.

They would have let it all happen, they hadn't stopped it.

* * *

 _The echo of the footfalls of Conner sounded as he came down each step slowly, where I struggled to sit up from being thrown down the steps, I watched him approach me leisurely, black eyes glinting in the dark._

 _"You're not trying hard enough Echo." Conner muttered, "I hate it when people don't try their best."_

 _He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and watched in calm amusement as I struggled to stand, off balance and unsteady from a large amount of continuing blood loss and the beating I was taking, not to mention the emotional struggle I was having._

 _I knew what I needed to do, of course I knew... But did I have the strength to do it?_

 _I did, I knew I did... This was the memory of that night, I'd already lived the conclusion._

 ** _Fight. Survive. Live._**

 _And there was that voice again, the deep, husky tone that had popped into my head at the time, and continued to do so every so often as I rotted away in the Mental Ward. The voice I had always pegged as my inner most conscience, the part of me that wanted to sirvive, to keep fighting, to live._

 _"I'm so sorry, Conner..." I whispered, "I'm so sorry... I was supposed to protect you... I failed... I am so sorry..."_

 _I wanted to wake up, I wanted to get away from the dream, away from the memory. I started clawing my way to consciousness, willing myself to wake up, before the memory could go any further, before I killed him, again. Every time I relived this, I felt my soul shatter all over again, I felt the ice run through my heart, my mind began to fall into an abyss..._

 _Wake up, wake up, wake up! Please wake up!_

 _I felt myself about to lung forward at Conner, about to slice his neck, before throwing him to the floor and plunging the knife through his heart. I couldn't control myself, I fought to but my body wasnt listening, it never did._

 _Then something happened that never happened before, I suddenly couldn't breath, a weight pressed down on my throat that made drawing air impossible. The memory started to crack and shatter, I started to struggle, what was going on?!_

My eyes snapped open to meet a black gaze, the face of a nurse hovering over me, her hand around my throat and lips split into a twisted grin, in her other hand she brought a scalpel toward my cheek, pressing the edge down so it cut me. The room was dark around us, night had fallen long ago.

"Hello Thea." Her voice cooed softly, every syllable dripping with venom. My heart leapt in horror, I'd never told anyone my real name, I'd only ever said my name was Echo.

My hands shot up to try and push her off, but she had one knee on each arm as she strattled me, too heavy for my weak muscles to have any chance of throwing off. The blade of the scalpel cut into my skin as the Demon pulled it down toward my jaw slowly, I couldn't scream with the pressure on my throat from being suffocated. I was drenched in sweat, body shaking and heart pounding in terror.

They'd come back for me, whoever had done this, whoever or whatever was responsible for making my life a living hell, they'd finally come to finish the job. I thrashed, my body weaking fast with the unusual amount of strain and the lack of air. The Demon smiled and drew the scalpel over my jaw and under my chin, dragging it down toward my neck.

"Now, I'm going to let go of your throat. Scream, and I'll snap your neck, got it?" The Demon chuckled, slowly letting go as I sucked in air hungrily, then opened my mouth to yell out for help- the Demon anticipated that and slapped a hand over my mouth, clicking her tongue at me. "Now now, what did I say?" She warned, I glared, still thrashing.

The Demon smirked, "Did you have a nice dream Thea?" It asked suddenly, a knowing look in its black eyes. I flattered slightly, the pain and suffering of that night crashing down on my head again, the Demon noticed how pale I grew and smiled more. "That's what I thought. Now, you've been kept nice and safe for the last few years, but time's come to collect- the boss wants what he went looking for that night, and you have it. Better cooperate, or you won't like what I do to you."

 _Boss? What he was looking for? Something I have?_

Now I was more confused than anything, I had realized there must have been a reason for what happened to me, but I had never been able to come up with one. And now it sounded as of the Demons were after something specific, and they thought I had it?

"So, where is it?" The Demon hissed, I blinked, eyes narrowed as the Demon suddenly let her hand fall from my mouth so I could answer.

"Have what?" I muttered hoarsely, the cut across my cheek, jaw and chin stinging as I said anything, the Demon scowled and suddenly pressed the scalpel into my neck lightly, cutting the skin slightly as I hissed.

"Do not play stupid girl, I don't have the patience for it!" The Demon spit into my face.

"I don't have any clue.. What the hell you're talking about..." I hissed through gritted teeth, the Demon pressed the scalpel against my neck harder, a trail of red running down and pain flaring to a higher level.

"Don't test me! I'm giving you the chance to avoid the hard way, if you don't tell me what I want, I will cut it out of you." The Demon muttered darkly, its anger was starting to flare. And yet, I still had no idea what it wanted.

Then a part of me suddenly wanted nothing more than to refuse to tell it anything, even if I didn't actually know. I wanted to make it angry, I wanted to be stubborn and refuse, I was angry. Anger was bubbling up inside me, anger unlike anything I had felt before. These Demons destroyed my life. They killed my family, they even somehow managed to erase my existence from this world. They had made my life hell, they were the reason I was so broken, and it infuriated me, there was a rage inside me I hadn't known could exist, hatred, I wanted to kill the thing before me, I wanted it dead.

"Screw you." I hissed, spitting into the face of the Demon, who scowled and hit me across the face with a fist. It was very easy to set Demons over the edge I guessed, because next thing I knew, the scalpel was pulled across my neck and cut across my windpipe, I choked on the blood that entered my mouth and throat, I couldn't breath, I was losing blood fast, and black started to drown my mind.

The Demon started to growl furious curses at me, all of which I never heard, because my body started to twitch involuntarily as the life drained from me, out of the slash across my throat, I couldn't breath, I was choking... I was going to die. After all of that, after everything... I was at the end.

A large part of me was OK with it, I was too far gone, I knew I was. I couldn't ever live again, and the prospect of spending my life in this one room was not a pleasing one. A small part of me was suddenly afraid to die, the same part of me that had filled me with rage, the strange part of me that had made my body move so perfectly, as if in practice, to kill my brother so quickly and skillfully that night.

My mind and sight faded away to dark, everything around me fell away, I felt the cold inviting hand of Death... And suddenly I heard it.

A rush of air, jagged now and not smooth, as if the feathers had been torn and turned brittle,

 _Wings._

 ** _"Forgive me, Thea."_**

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3- Whose Fault?

**Whose Fault?  
**

 **Disclaimer: I Do Not Own SPN or its characters, I DO however own all my OCs, Ideas, and the story.**

* * *

 ** _"Please forgive me, Thea."_**

 _That had been said to me, just as I felt the dark wrap about me and pull me down... Down into a nightmare, an endless nightmare._

 _I recognized the deep, gravely voice- the same voice I had assumed was my inner consciousness, but suddenly I wasn't so sure._

 _I was falling down into the dark, cold waves of air and water enveloping me on all sides, I struggled to breath as panic, fear, and pain set in. My throat burned white hot, my cheek did too- my heart was pounding in quick, faint, uneven beats. My lungs ached and screamed, I couldn't get in enough air, I could calm my breathing down, I was gasping, choking._

 _Is this what dying was? More pain? More suffering?_

 _As my body fell away, my mind raced, forever bombarded with the horror I had experienced in a few short hours on the night my life fell apart around me. I screamed at the memories, my heart ached, my head felt like it was going to split open, tears streamed from my eyes, I felt my soul shatter over and over and over again, the pain was torture, this was all torture._

 _I saw Cage ripped open on the floor._

 _The image of my parents filleted, their hearts nailed to the ceiling._

 _Relived the pain of Conner's knife running over my shoulder and down my back, the same knife stabbing me in the side, cutting open my arm as I blocked a blow, the crack of my ribs as they shattered being thrown down the steps- all of that pain amplified in a fiery wave of pure torture._

 _Shoving the blade into Conner's chest,_

 _My soul cracked, my soul shattered, heart broke, mind broke down.. Over and over it all went, forever. I didn't think it would stop, and oh I wanted it to stop._

 _I screamed and yelled until my throat was bloody, I begged for it all to stop, the pain, the suffering. I wanted it over I didn't want to see all of this, feel all of it. It was too much for me, I had managed to stay as sane and put together as I could after everything happened, but this was going to break me in ways I would never get back up from. Ever._

 _My heart broke as I saw everyone I knew, everyone I loved, they all forgot me. I was nothing to them, I didn't exist._

 _I was nothing._

 _"Play with me!" Conner yelled happily, the knife in hand and his eyes black._

 _No.. No..! Please.. Stop.. !_

 _"You are not the Echoette's daughter. They never had a daughter."_

 _Yes I am! Everyone forgot who I was... I... No one can imagine what that's like... To have your own family forget you were even alive?_

 _I was plunged deeper, and I couldn't scream anymore, my mind was overtaken, I was losing, and now my lungs screamed for air I couldn't get, my body was dying while my mind lived on in eternal torture. I feared the nightmare would never stop._

 _I wanted out. Any way out would do, just to get away.. To feel nothing, maybe even to forget. I couldn't fight anymore, I was too weak too, and the weaker I grew, the less painful the torture became._

 ** _"Stay with me, Thea..."_**

 _Someone was holding on to me. Someone wasn't letting me fall away into nothing, into numbness. They kept me in the ever revolving nightmare, in all that pain and torture._

 _Didn't they get it? I didn't want this anymore. I wanted to let go, and wanted... I wanted to die. Just to get away from the memories, from the life I had been forced into, from the things that haunted me, the pain I felt, the regret, the guilt. I was ready to give up, what life I had left had been nothing good and I didn't want it, damn it!_

 _The more they pulled me, pulled me back, the worse the pain was, the more the memories haunted me, tore out at me, and I screamed again and again. My body felt like it was being ripped in two,_

 _Make it stop!_

 _I was dragged from the dark water at the bottom of my mind, thoughts fragmented and mind overstretched, not able to piece any clear thoughts together, everything a haze of fire-burning agony. My body was on fire, everything hurt on a level so profound words can't describe it, it had passed far beyond the level of torture and agony, it was nothing anyone could have ever endured..._

* * *

My mind managed to bring me back to the waking world, only a little though, and not nearly enough to make sense of anything.

My body was on fire to the point I was freezing, my head throbbed terribly, my heart fluttered in odd, uneven, unhealthy beats. I was gasping in air in quick, shallow, harsh breaths that weren't nearly enough, my chest ached from the lack of breathing regularly. My entire being shook uncontrollably, covered in a cold sweat, trembling and gasping, my mind in a haze that I couldn't focus, I couldn't see anything, my eyes couldn't open, fading in and out, pain engulfing me so I couldn't help but continually wince, groan and gasp at the agony all over me.

Where I was, I didn't know. The surface under me was harder than a bed, and too sticky to be any sort of sheet or bedding, and everything rocked slowly, though that could have been my shattered mind.

 _"... ean... I... He...pl...ease"_

That voice made its way to me in the middle of my agony, it was faint and far off, and my fading mind couldn't hear everything said, it was all fragmented, jumbled. But I knew the voice, the same one, the same one that'd been in my head... The same one I was sure was keeping me here, even through all the pain it was putting me through.

 _"...a...avor... she... Bad..."_

 _Bad?_

Bad didn't begin to describe it, this was hell, a hundred times over, and being forced to stay wasn't helping...

My consciousness failed and the nightmare started up again, worse than before, always getting worse...

* * *

 _I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't keep living through this, it just kept breaking me, more and more, into smaller pieces, more pieces._

 _I began to believe that ever waking up wasn't possible, which was the one thing that person keeping me here didn't seem to accept. And if by some miracle, I made it through this? What then?_

 _I wouldn't be a person anymore, I'd be way too broken, far beyond repair, I'd never function again, I wouldn't ever live again. Not really._

 _The tears never stopped, as I saw Conner swinging the kitchen knife at me again, this must have been the ten thousandth time... It never stopped, I wanted it to stop..._

 _I blinked, feeling my body suddenly lighten, a rush of coolness washed over my being, and the dark of my home suddenly went away, the blood, the pain, it was all gone- and before me I saw Conner's smiling face as he tossed the baseball toward me. I caught it easily, staring at him and his smile, his sparkling green eyes full of glee, the park around us resting in the light of the dying sun, a breeze blowing through and ruffling both our hair._

 _This was the park near our house, I had taken Conner here every once in awhile when we had been bored. We'd sit an talk, mess around, play games with one another. We spent time with each other, always happy, in bliss... This was bliss I could hardly remember feeling, everything had been nothing but darkness, pain, grief, for so long..._

 _My heart swelled when I looked at him, the real him- not when he had been possessed. I loved him more than anything, I would do anything for him, and he knew it._

 _Conner faded in a ray of gold as suddenly I was running around our backyard, laughing as Cage barked and chased after me and the toy I held in my hand. The dog I loved, the one I slept with at night, who was always there at the foot of my bed, eyes shinning and tail wagging._

 _Then I was with Sarah, sitting with her on the couch, in the middle of a story about one of the books she'd read as I listening intently, enjoying every second she recited the story in glee and happiness, the vigor and cheer I had always loved, of how much of a nerd she was. I was always perfectly happy to listen to her, I hadn't needed to say anything, listening was enough._

 _Then I was with my parents, eating at a restaurant as my father and I listened to mom recite what happened at her job the day before, always in that exaggerated and over the top way she told all her stories. My dad and I shared an amused look between us as she talked, and he mockingly rolled his eyes a little and I chuckled under my breath._

 _Before me flashed all the happy memories I had begun to forget, all the good times with my family, my friends, all the things I missed so much it had made my heart hurt to think about them- and it still did, but it was a happy ache compared to the torture I had been enduring, the years of solitude and grief. My tears slowed, and I smiled a little, I had forgotten how good it was to see them to hear their voices, remember their faces._

 _There was no pain here, just peace. I didn't know how I got here, and it didn't matter either. It was just such a relief to be away from the darkness, it was so good to feel at least a little happy again, not to live in despair and pain even just a few moments. Because I didn't get to remain there for very long, before the black crashed back over my mind and the pain flared to life again, only this time I wasn't dragged down._

* * *

Maybe it was because the nightmare came to an end, maybe because my mind and body were given rest from the torture of what happened to me, or maybe whoever had been holding on to me in the dark had finally managed to pull me out. I had no clue, but at least it was over, and my mind was back in the land of the living... Or at least I assumed so.

Everything was still painful, my body ached and my heart was still beating unevenly, but it was better than last time, and my breathing had managed to slow down at least a little that I could take deeper breaths. I still felt like shit though, my head pound in accordance with my heart, it made me groan as I attempted to shift, every move was painful.

I opened my eyes to a dim light shinning in around me every so often through clouded windows above me, the black receding from my vision slowly, still blurry. I was where I had been before, and now I figured out what it was, a car.

I had been laid out in the back seat of a car, the light outside was dark as if it was still night time, I assumed the lights passing by every once in awhile were sparse streetlights passing us by as the car rolled on.

I took notice that my throat wasn't slashed open anymore, running a hand over the skin it was smooth an untouched, as of it never happened. The same was for the cut across my cheek and over my jaw, that had suddenly disappeared too... _What?_

I specifically remembered the scalpel slashing over my throat, my blood pooling out of the wound, choking on it. And now there wasn't even a scar? That had to be impossible...

I hissed under my breath and rolled over to try and see the rest of the car, most specifically the person driving. I couldn't really see them very well, just a tan coat, their hands on the wheel, a mess of dark hair... But that was it, everything was too dark and the scarce light from the passing streetlights wasn't enough to get a better image.

Now, let's take a minute to think on why I was still even a little sane. After all of that, I should be a mess, I should be broken beyond repair- mumbling to myself and unable to function correctly. And though the memory stung, the pain and torture was unbearable if I thought about it... But I was still relatively sane for the most part. My mind was still working though I could feel the ghost of my past haunting me at the back of my mind, I could feel the agony of the endless nightmare nagging at me- but I pushed away into a deep, dark corner of my mind and locked it tight...

But even so, I was better than I should be. My mind was more intact than I had anticipated... Not that I was complaining... But at what cost? The endless torture I had to sit through? All that suffering I had been forced to endure?

"Who the hell... Are you...?" I hissed lowly, managing to sit up with my legs on the seat and lean back against the door.

They jumped when they heard my voice, the car swerved a little on the road in reaction and his head snapped around toward me, my eyes meeting his tired blue ones as his face lit up in complete shock when he saw me. Shock on what? I figured maybe it was because he hadn't thought I would wake up, or maybe it was something else- all train of thought on the matter failed when he suddenly pulled the car off to the side of the road and the sudden bumps jostled my aching body so it flared in pain, I hissed, my eyes shutting.

"God... Damn it..." I growled, body rigid and jaw clenched. My face fell as my stomach suddenly flipped incessantly and I felt the bile rising up my throat. My fingers fumbled for the door handle as I stumbled from the car and over the oily and brittle grass on the side of the road, toward the shrubbery not far from there as my body convulsed in painful spasms, eyes watering and throat stinging, panting and feeling faint.

I stepped away when it was over and wiped my chin with the back of my hand, stumbling across the grass halfway before I had to sit down, my legs were shaking too much to walk properly. I took notice that the man who had been driving the car had stepped out, now he was shuffling nervously near the car, blue eyes darting back forth between me and the ground. He fidgeted, like he didn't know what to do or how to handle anything now that I was actually conscious.

The thing that hit me though, was that sense of insane, calm power floating about him. It was the same sort of vibe I felt when I was around Demons, the sense that they were different- not just evil and dark. It was the feeling that they were not inherently human, and that was a feeling I got from the man standing near the car before me.

He was in a suit with a brown trench coat over it, a blue tie that matched his eyes and a mess of black hair. There were wrinkles near the corners of his eyes that made him look more tired and strained then he probably should, though at the moment I knew he was struggling to come up with a course of action, or maybe even what he was going to say. So, I spared him the trouble for a minute.

"Who and _what_ are you?" I asked in between my panting. His eyes went a little wide at the question of 'what', as if he hadn't expected me to realize he was not human- or at least so I felt. He looked human enough, but my instincts were telling me different.

"Thea..." He mumbled, before letting out a sigh, eyes closing a moment before they rest upon me once more. "My name is Castiel. I am an Angel of the Lord, I was stationed here on Earth and ordered to watch over you... I was watching you while everything happened with your family, and then off and on since that time..." His voice trailed off as he continued, because he saw the scowl on my face the minute he stopped talking, the scowl that appeared there immediately after my initial shock at the news was forgotten, and in his blue eyes there was real regret.

 _Regret for what?_

There was no lie in his voice, I _knew_ when people were lying to me. And he was not, he was telling the _truth_ , or he really believed he was what he said he was.

But a part of me realized that the fluttering of wings, the very noise I had heard before I was forgotten by everyone, that had been the fluttering of _Angel Wings._

There had been _someone_ there. There had been _someone_ watching as my life was thrown up and ripped apart.

There had been a _freaking Angel_ sitting there watching. _Just watching._

An Angel who had sat back and just observed as my brother tried to kill me, as my parents were tortured and killed, as a Demon possessed Conner. An Angel who just _watched_ as everyone forgot I existed, as I was forced to kill my own brother or be killed myself. An Angel that had just sat there as my soul shattered, and one who only cared enough to check in on me when I was thrown into that Mental Hospital only off and on.

An Angel had just sat back and watched as I was broken, shattered, and ripped apart. As I was forgotten by everyone I ever knew, as I lost all the people I had ever loved. _He hadn't done a thing._

"An _Angel?_!" I spat, fists clenching at my sides as a rage began to build up inside of me, a rage unlike any other I had ever felt. Rage that made my body shake I was so angry, I was so _hurt._

Castiel flinched at the tone of my voice, eyes glittering in regret, guilt and sadness so profound it would give anyone pause, but I couldn't care.

"What kind of an _Angel_ could just stand back and _let_ that happen?! How could you just watch as my life fell apart?! When I had to kill my own brother?!" I got to my feet, all weakness and unsteadiness forgotten in the surge of pure and utter rage, my voice cutting out at the night air around us. "How could you have done nothing when Conner killed my parents, and then tried to kill me?! How could you have left me there in that Hospital?! Do you have _any_ idea what all of that did to me?! How many times my soul shattered, my heart broke?! Do you have any fucking idea how devastating and horrible my life has been?! _DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA?! HOW COULD YOU JUST LET ALL OF THAT HAPPEN?!"_

My voice rose steadily until it shook the night air, as all that anger, all the pain and rage and heartbreak- the endless nights of nightmares, the days spent alone and left to wither away, all of it- it all came crashing down, all on his head, as my body shook with all the emotion and my eyes sparkled with it, the small tears creeping up and down my cheeks.

He recoiled, his blue eyes a sea of regret and guilt and sadness unlike any other, because for all he thought he may have known about what I went through- I suddenly destroyed that. For the first time he was seeing what a mess I truly was, how broken and twisted, angry and pain filled, and haunted I really was, down, deep inside. He saw the withered shell of a person I was, he saw how badly my soul was shattered, and he saw how far gone I was. He saw the pain. The unbelievable, unbearable pain I had endured.

 _And it was all his fault_. He was an Angel, he could and should have done something, anything to try and prevent anything that happened from happening at all. He could have tried at least. And he hadn't.

I was being harsh, insanely hurtful, and I didn't care. In my mind he deserved to see all that, to hear me yell at him, because in my mind it was his fault. And I should be allowed to be angry, and harsh and hurtful- especially to the person who could have tried to help me, and never had.

But suddenly, all the anger and pain that flowed through me, the energy it had granted, it disappeared as I yelled my heart out to him, as it all came out. My legs gave out underneath me as black crashed over my vision and feverish weakness clouded my senses. The sudden amount of effort and energy I had just wasted left me no better than I had been, I was still hurt, I was still sick... And no amount of rage was going to fix that.

I struggled to cling to wakefulness, feeling arms wrap about me before I could completely hit the ground, my front pressed up against someone else's as they held me close, gently but tightly, as we both sank to our knees in the grass. Their chin rest in my shoulder as my cheek pressed up against their chest, they were warm, which was both comforting and very uncomfortable- my body couldn't decide if I was cold or hot my fever was so high. It took a moment or two for my mind to reach the conclusion that it was Castiel who had caught me before I could hit the ground, and who was continuing to hold me in his embrace, almost protectively... As if I was some delicate flower that if he let me go I would fall apart, which at this point was probably pretty true...

... I wasn't sure I liked the contact with the very person who had essentially let my life fall into the continuous living hell it was now. I wanted nothing to do with him, I was still very angry at him... In fact I just hated him for what he did, for letting it happen. But at the moment, my body didn't have the strength to reject him.

I had a hard time focusing, falling in and out of black, the fever starting to take a hold of me again. In this state I had a hard time hearing what it was that Castiel was saying to me, because I began to hear him murmur some things as he continued to hold me. I listened harder, trying very hard to make sense of it all.

"... Thea... I am... Sorry..." His voice was low and full of sadness, he seemed to be having a hard time getting the words out. "... I regret every minute... I wasn't there to help you... I know I should... Have done something... Anything to... Keep you safe... You were my responsibility... And I failed you... Nothing can make up for my mistakes... And I'm afraid there is nothing I can do... To make up for what my mistakes have cost you..."

I _hated_ that.

His voice was hitching, cracking... His tone so full of pain, sadness, regret, guilt... All of it pure. Every single word was filled with the purest emotion I thing I had ever heard, I knew he meant what he was saying, I could tell he was sorry... But did he think telling me he was sorry was going to cut it? That somehow a simple apology was going to wipe clean years of pain, torture, and fear?

 _No, it wasn't._ It was nowhere close... And he was right, nothing would make up for what I had been through. Nothing.

Even then, it _meant_ something, even if that something was slight, to actually hear someone admit to it... To have someone tangible to blame... And to know that they were torn up about what had happened to me. That they realized it was their mistake that I was like this now... That I was so broken...

There was someone to put fault on.

There was someone who was sorry for what they did to me. Truly sorry.

His apology wouldn't make things better, it wouldn't come close... But at least... It was a bit better to just know... There was someone willing to admit to me.. What they did wrong...

"I am so sorry, Thea... I wish I could take it all back..." He whispered, his voice failing him near the end as he held me tighter, just as my mind gave away and I was sent spiraling into cool nothingness.

* * *

 _Castiel_

I had a name to my mystery, the sound of an Angel's wings, wings that had been the prelude to my life becoming a living hell.

The sound of Castiel's wings.

I had an apology.

 _"I am so sorry, Thea... I wish I could take it all back..."_

An apology that meant very little, but even then still amounted to something. Someone who admitted their fault, someone seemingly truly sorry for what happened to me.

I had a clue.

A clue to why that Demon possessed my brother that night, when my parents were killed and my existence was erased from the world.

Some Demon, somewhere, wanted something. Something they thought that I had.

I was out of that Mental Hospital.

Albeit, I was on the run from Demons, and now I was in the company of the being who had a chance to stop my life from becoming hell, and who hadn't taken it. I was sick, broken, shattered, probably insane...

But I was _out._

I had gained much more in the last few hours than I had for four years in the room of that Mental Hospital I had been in.

I knew my life was still A Grade Hell, it always would be... That was the life I had now... But maybe... Just maybe... I should try and live with it. Prosper, despite it.

... If that was even possible.

I wanted the solitude, the silence of sitting in a room alone, forever haunted by my past, the days of withering away- to **end**. I didn't want any of that anymore. I had never wanted it... Perhaps this was the chance to change it.

I didn't like the circumstances I was in at the moment, I didn't like being in the company of Castiel, for however long that was going to be. I didn't like being unhinged and broken... And I certainly didn't like the idea that Demons were probably hunting me.

But damn it, I would have to just deal with it.

And what was more? I wanted revenge. I wanted the name of the Demon who had ordered all of this. I wanted to know why my life fell apart. Why everyone forgot me, why they were after me and what they wanted.

I wanted that Demon dead. And I was going to get that, even if it killed me.

* * *

My mind came back to wakefulness, what I guessed, was not long after the time I fell away into the black, because when I opened my eyes it was still dark outside and we were still driving- Castiel silent in the driver's seat with his eyes trained to the road.

There had been no nightmare or torture this time around, I was thankful for it, and so was my battered and frayed mind- I don't think I could stand another one of the nightmares, and I hadn't been forced to- this time around my mind had remained in cold bliss, calm and empty.

I sat up slowly and leaned against the door, still feeling feverish but much better than last time.

"Castiel.." I said slowly, lowly- attempting not to freak him out as much as I had the first time, no need to go swerving off the road again. How my voice managed to freak an _Angel_ out was beyond me, weren't they supposed to be all powerful celestial beings? Yet he seemed to act relatively human for all purposes, I mean hell- he was _driving a car._

He flinched, but he didn't entirely freak out this time around, he managed to calmly glance back toward me, eyes tired and sparkling as he saw me. "Thea... How are you feeling?" He asked slowly, his head turning back toward the road and eyes meeting mine through the rearview mirror. I rubbed a hand through my hair and sighed, letting my eyes close.

"Shitty." I replied bluntly, my eyes opening just in time to see the small frown appear across his face. "... What happened, at the Hospital?" I asked slowly, "How am I even alive when that Demon sliced my throat? And what the hell did it want from me anyway?"

"You knew it was a Demon?" Castiel answered my questions with a question of his own, voice low and eyes glued to the road. I glanced out the dark, moisture covered window and nodded a bit.

"Yeah, I know... I just... since Conner and everything, I figured that what had taken him was a Demon... It makes sense, and I just knew on instinct."

"Most humans prefer not to believe what they see." Castiel murmured. "Many of them write off what they actually see as nothing, they don't buy into it..." I quirked an eyebrow. I understood that of course, at one time I wanted nothing more then to reject what I knew to be a Demon- I didn't want to believe it was one. But I had to, because the prospect of a Demon hadn't been the most ridiculous thing to happen to me in my life.

"... I suppose you'll probably need to learn about all the rest... But I think the two of them will help with that..." Castiel mumbled, his voice so low I wasn't sure if he was really talking to me or if he was mumbling to himself.

"Castiel?" I mumbled, trying to draw his attention back and he sighed.

"Sorry... As for your throat, I healed that to keep you alive." He murmured, "I did that as soon as I disposed of the Demon who was attacking you, before I took you away from that Hospital."

"Healed?" I asked, slightly astounded. "Angels can do that?"

"We can... Most wounds are easy to repair." He paused, blue eyes flicking toward the rearveiw mirror to meet my gaze, where he seemed to know what I was thinking. "... However, your sickness and other ailments are not so easy, though I've been trying to keep you alive and as stable as I could."

By that he meant he was the one that kept holding on to me, he kept me from falling into the dark, he kept me in that endless cycle of nightmares and torture. If he knew how much pain it had been, how much keeping me alive had made me suffer- I couldn't tell. He just seemed overall guilty and sad,

"... Alright..." I mumbled. "But what did that Demon want? It spouted something about a boss, who thought I had something that they wanted. Any ideas?"

He was silent for a very long time, as we continued down the dark empty road. I blinked in surprise at the silence, I wasn't quite sure why he was so quiet so suddenly- because to me, it was a simple question, and I assumed he would know. Angel's were supposed to know things right? And if Castiel had been 'watching' me he must have figured out what that Demon wanted.

"I'm not sure, Thea." He replied, earning a genuine look of shock from me. Because, how could he not know?

"What?" I breathed,

"I had been trying to understand why those things happened to you as well... But no matter how far I searched or how deep I dug- I haven't been able to find the real reason... I don't know why all of this has happened to you, or who the Demon is that is after you... I'm sorry." He told me slowly, voice lowering near the end as I looked away, closing my eyes. "I wish I had answers for you.. I really do..."

I had been hoping Castiel would know. Anything that would help me get closer to destroying the bastard that started all of this was welcome, but if the Angel who had supposedly been 'watching' me didn't know- there wasn't much hope for finding answers, at least not for a long while.

That in itself was annoying, and infuriating. My fists clenched and I closed my eyes at the flare of annoyance growing inside me,

That Demon needed to die, and I needed to know why my life had been turned to shit. Now I was going to need to really work for it, and I would.

I forced myself to let out a slow, calming breath, crushing the anger rising inside of me. I noticed that Castiel was looking at me, he must have been watching to see my reaction to the news, and the worry on his face was apparent.

"Thea.." He started but I shook my head and looked away, a frown creasing my lips.

"Whatever... Just... Forget it for right now." I muttered lowly, voice little more than an annoyed growl. I didn't want to hear any excuses or apologies from him any more, I had heard enough. Castiel's eyes fell in shame and I huffed a little, not particularly concerned if I had hurt his feelings or not. He had done a bit more to me, I figured no amount of being rude nor crass could amount to the pain his inaction had put on me.

"Where the hell are we going anyway?" I muttered.

At first thought, it was reasonable that I wouldn't want to be anywhere near him- and I didn't. But I wasn't stupid. I had nowhere to go, I had Demons hunting me, and I was probably being searched for by the police for breaking out of the Psychiatric Hospital. I was still a sort of convicted murder after all.

Now I'm not saying I would enjoy being his company, but I really didn't have much choice right now... Perhaps maybe after I had recovered a bit and learned a few more things, I would ditch the Angel who had sat back and watched my life be destroyed... I pushed those thoughts away for now.

"And how long have I been out?" I added in, it felt like years, but from the dark outside it couldn't have been more than a few hours...

"You've been in and out of unconsciousness for nearly 24 hours." Castiel mumbled lowly, "As for where we are headed... You need a place where you can be kept safe and be able to recuperate. The best place I know of is with two friends of mine... They're Hunters."

"Hunters?" I echoed, the term suddenly striking an odd chord within me- somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt that term had some meaning I didn't quite understand... Huh.

"Humans who hunt and kill things like Demons." Castiel explained. "They're trustworthy... And they may be able to help solve the mystery of why and what Demon is after you..." He trailed off, letting his blue eyes land on me from his veiw in the mirror for a split second. "... After you've recovered, of course..."

Was that concern in his tone just then? If it was, I didn't want it, at least not from him.

My eyes went back to watching the dark outside pass us by. What choice did I have on any of this? No choice... I had to go along with it for now, and the idea that these two "Hunters" Castiel knew, may be able to help figure out why I had my life thrown apart- that interested me. I needed to know so many things, because I could tell there was much more about this Hunter thing that Castiel wasn't saying at the moment. I needed help to figure out why all this happened to me, I knew it.

"Fine." I replied lowly, letting my eyes fall closed and head lean against the seat. "... But I'll need you to make a quick stop before we get there, alright?" I wasn't really asking, more ordering that in a slightly less demanding tone than I could have used. He would stop if he liked it or not, I was in blood covered Mental Hospital scrubs, my hair was a mess, I was covered in sweat, and I looked like shit... I needed to change, and maybe something to drink would be nice.

Castiel didn't respond for a bit, before he finally let out a small agreement of "Alright..." And we continued on in silence, getting closer and closer to the new part of my life, the one where I was dragged into the horrors of a world where all the things said to be hiding in the dark were suddenly very real. Not just Demons and Angels, other things- things in never imagined could possibly be real... And things that suddenly were.

All of it.


	4. Chapter 4- Hunters

**Hunters**

 **Disclaimer: I Do Not Own SPN or its characters, I DO however own all my OCs, Ideas, and the story.**

* * *

I stood before the dirty mirror in front of me silently, the lights overhead flickering a bit- the small room fairly dirty and empty.

Water dripped from my pale skin as my tired eyes traced the pitiful form of my own body, I had become very thin, my muscles had wasted away over the years, my skin grew lighter. My hair was darker too, and it was very long, dull- the ends split and frayed for inches, now damp from the shower I had taken.

As per my instruction, I had Castiel pull into a Camping site just off the highway- where I knew there would be showers to use, I had been camping several times with my family and remembered it well.

All the blood and the grime and the sweat had been wiped clean from my body, a welcome feeling- it was refreshing, and being cleaner made me feel a bit better.

My eyes traced the scar along my side, right were the pale mark littered my skin- from the kitchen knife Conner had shoved into me. My eyes slowly traced toward my left arm, where a long gash had been carved into the side from blocking the knife as Conner swung out at me...

And then my eyes landed on the scar stretching from my shoulder and over down my back. This one was the largest, and the most noticeable. It stretched all the way from the top of my shoulder, over my shoulder blade and down until it stopped in the center of the middle of my back.

These were the three scars that had never faded away since that night. The physical scars from the wounds done unto me as my possessed brother tried to murder me...

I shuddered at the thought, shaking my head a little to rid myself of the sudden burst of pain coming on- my mind was shredded enough, and thinking about things like that were not going to help me stay any more sane.

I grabbed the clothes I had swiped from the various campsites around the area- everyone was asleep, so no one noticed. A part of me felt stealing was wrong. _It was wrong..._ But maybe certain things were alright, in the right situations.

What I had to choose from hadn't been a lot, but it was enough. I had found a pair of boot cut jeans that would fit me, a black tank top and a black hoodie too- with some socks and a pair of worn, but still usable dark blue converse, and a towel.

They were much better than the same white attire I had been in the last four years, I don't think I could ever wear white again, the color was somewhat sickening.

I pulled the clothes on and sighed to myself, running my fingers through my hair, which was well past the center of my back in length now, as I attempted to pull out as many of the tangles as I could, and make it look decent. I hadn't anything in the way of tying it up, so I let it fall loosely about my shoulders and down my back- I frowned slightly at it though, I didn't like long hair, it was uncomfortable...

I paused a bit longer to look at the result of the new clothes and the lack of blood.

I looked... _Normal._

It had never occurred to me that I could look even relatively normal under any circumstances anymore. I wasn't normal by any means, I was broken and quite possibly a bit insane. My life wasn't normal, and to see myself now- with regular clothes and clean skin, washed hair... It was weird.

A nice change though. I knew I must look like a wreck still, but I had been much worse looking before. Now I could pass as a possibly depressed and exhausted human being, who was still running a bit of a fever but nothing bad.

I looked better, I felt a bit better... This wasn't so bad. At least, not until I remembered who I was, what happened, and who I was in the company of.

I was a fugitive, there were Demons after me, I was a wreck, and I was in the company of an Angel- _the Angel who had let my life fall apart..._ I let a heavy sigh escape my lips as I let my eyes fall closed.

"Awesome... My life is just great..." I muttered exasperatedly, slightly annoyed by it and put down, but honestly? I knew it could be much worse, at least at this point things had somewhat slowed down... To a point anyway. Crazy things had started up again and I was on the run, yes- but it was a sort of peaceful urgency, it was better than being in that Mantal Hospital- it was better to be moving again, to be in the outside world. Even if I hadn't actually had any social contact or done anything besides dying in a back seat of an Angel's car, who of which was the only being I had spoken to since then.

Speaking of the Angel, I knew he was standing outside the door to the bathroom right now- I could feel the calm sense of power nagging at the back of my kind that alerted me of his presence anywhere near me. The Angel who watched my life fall apart. And the Angel who had saved me from dying when the Demon got into the Mental Hospital, the one who broke me out and the one who held on to me as I fell closer and closer to dying - albeit if doing so had made me stay in the endless, agonizing torture now threatening to derail my mind if I thought about it. And the Angel who had admitted to me that he had let everything happen, that he hadn't done anything... And that he was sorry. He had told me he was sorry, though I was sure he thought I hadn't heard any of it. He regretted it, I could tell he did, and his eyes were so sad when he looked at me, he hated what he did to me.

'Sorry' didn't mean a lot in light of the things that had happened, I was just glad he admitted his fault. It was better to have someone who admitted their mistakes, then tried to ignore them.

I shook my head a little and sighed, turning away from the mirror and dumping the clothes I was ditching into the bottom of the trash can, moving some of the things around so they were covered by other trash, and then headed out the door into the cool night outside, hearing Castiel move as he saw the door open and he headed over.

"We can go now." I mumbled, glancing his way momentarily as he reached me, I turned to face him and quirked an eyebrow at the slightly astonished look-over he gave me. "What?"

"You look... Better." He offered rather weakly and I just blinked. Maybe seeing how much better a simple shower and a change of clothes was a notion he couldn't quite understand, I was slowly getting the feeling that Castiel was very socially awkward- and not just with me. He just had that air about him, like he was some sort of isolated puppy most of his life that didn't know how to act around humans.

"Yeah..." I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck in exasperation as I turned away, "Come on..." I called back, heading toward the parked form of his car as I heard him follow me slowly, I swear I saw him shaking his head at himself and I faintly heard him mutter something like; 'stupid... What were you thinking...'

I shook my head slightly. Definitely a socially awkward little puppy... Lord knows why I got stuck with an Angel who was this awkward...

* * *

"Are these guys even going to be awake?" I murmured, arms over my chest and eyes out searching the dark gray of the early morning outside. "Its like 4 in the morning." Castiel had told me we were only a few minutes out just a bit before, and where we were too. Two states over from Nevada- in Kansas of all places.

"They will be." Castiel replied evenly, "They only ever get about four hours of sleep every other day most of the time."

Four hours of sleep every other day? I blinked in shock at the response, how could anyone live on four hours every other day? I couldn't, I wouldnt think... But honestly, sleeping hadn't been all it was cracked up to be, when every time you shut your eyes, you relived everything- all the things that happened, and were plagued by endless nightmares. Most nights I woke up screaming after an hour or so and then couldn't go back to sleep for another few, and then a nightmare ensued and the process repeated.

Inside the Mental Hospital, I had lost all sense of time. And I suppose that went to say I lost sense of hours in there too- because I probably hadn't gotten more than four or five hours of sleep every night either...

Speaking of the Mental Hospital- "How did you get me out of there?" I asked, earning a head tilt from the Angel at the unexpected question. "How did you manage to walk out of that Hospital with me, and not get gunned down? And on that matter, shouldn't the police be _looking_ for me?"

"They think you're dead." Was the answer, "Getting out was easy, I can make myself invisible to humans should I want to- but there was a lot of your blood in that room, too much for anyone to live, I checked in and they have announced you dead and not alerted the authorities on the matter."

I sighed a little, effective really... If they thought I was dead, I wasn't going to be pursued by the police... But again, my existence in the world was erased again. Whatever name I had had since being thrown in that hospital was gone, I was no one again, I was nothing...

... But was that so bad? I was broken, it really couldn't matter very much if I was nothing...

"I see..." I replied lowly, letting us fall into silence again, silence. That was what we had been doing for the most part, just sitting there, we hardly said a word to each other.

Castiel must have thought it better not to say any thing to me, wary of the fact that I was clearly not fond of him and probably wouldn't be up to chit chatting.

He rolled to a stop on some out of the way dirt road surrounded by trees and a large hill to my right, where I could faintly make out some steps leading down toward a circular tunnel entrance it seemed. I paused a minute, fingers tracing the door handle before I stepped out into he chilly air outside, my breath billowing out in front of me in a cloud. I heard Castiel's door open and shut, and then his feet crunching on the gravel of the road as he circled around toward me and looked my way, but I wasn't looking at him- instead my eyes were trained on the circular entrance.

"Is this... A Military Bunker or something...?" I asked slowly, it being the only thing I could come up with- considering it looked like it was underground.

"... No, its not Military per say." Castiel murmured, "It was for a... Supernatural Fighting group of men, they built it. But it is referred to as 'The Bunker'. Its also been warded against the Supernatural, no Demons can enter or even find this place. You'll be safe here." He explained, earning a small nod from me. I glanced his way and our eyes met momentarily, before he hastily looked away and headed toward the door. "C-come on..."

I shook my head slightly and followed him in, there was a door in the round entryway that he opened easily. The door creaked a little on its hinges as we headed into the space, the lights bright overhead and the inside feather warm, as we stood on a small balcony the had a set of stairs to the right, and overlooked a sort of main foyer where a large table with the globe spread out across its surface, sproting several lights and whatnot, was spread. I noticed the several spread our books and documents spread among its surface, and then spotted the corridor leading away to the left, and the small steps into a separate room on the right- from my angle I could see dozens of books and such on the shelves.

Castiel paused a moment to let me see what I could, before he lead me down the steps, and stopped in the main foyer, I glanced around hastily, trying to take in everything that I could.

 _Jesus there were a lot of books here... And a lot of trash._

Not to be sexest or anything, but I had to figure that these two Hunters Castiel had brought me to, must be men. I couldn't picture any girls living with so much clutter and trash...

Our entry into 'The Bunker' hadn't gone unnoticed, and my head snapped around to the left when I heard footsteps echoing down the hallway there, the form of some... _Seriously tall_ dude walking toward us. My eyes went wide, barely noticing or even caring about his plaid shirt and jeans with workmen boots, or even his thick, long brown hair.

This guy was a _freaking giant!_ I had never thought of myself as very short but Jesus, _he was huge!_

He approached us immediately, recognizing Castiel I'm sure, before his eyes found me and I saw them light up with surprise. Surprise? Probably because I figured Castiel had called them earlier, when I had been you know- _dying_. Seeing me upright and relatively normal should come as a surprise.

"Cas," he murmured, stopping before us, his eyes glancing back and forth between the Angel and myself. "Everything ok? Did you have any problems getting here?" He asked, ignoring me for a minute, though I could hardly care- I was too busy looking up at him, still trying to get over his towering height over me. I'd gotten taller in the last four years, and still I was a freaking _midget_ compared to this guy.

Ok, I might be exaggerating about that just a tiny bit, but the point still stands.

"Yes, its fine... For now. I believe we are... 'Out of the hoods' for now, that was the saying?" Castiel murmured, his tone low and dropping into uncertainty near the end. The tall man smiled a little and sighed,

"... Out of the _woods,_ Cas." He corrected gently, earning an understanding look from the Angel.

"That makes much more sense..."

The man's eyes finally moves to, and stayed on me, giving me a reassuring smile and a sudden kind demeanor I wasn't quite used to anymore. "Hey, you must be Thea. My name's Sam Winchester, my brother Dean is here too... I think he's in the kitchen." He said, "Cas told us the gist... Are you alright? How are you feeling?"

For a minute, I was just embarrassed. Do you remember me telling you, I was painfully _shy?_ I hadn't been that way since everything happened... But just now, now I was shy, and I was flustered, the fact that he was _so freaking tall_ wasn't helping. Maybe it was because he was being so nice to me? Something other people really hadn't been for four years?

Castiel doesn't count. I'm still pissed at him.

"... Y-yeah... You can just call me Echo though, if you want..." I mumbled, voice too low to be socially acceptable, but _hey!_ At least I managed to say anything at all, Sam smiled a little at my sudden flusteredness. "... I... I think I'm more or less ok... Tired... But ok..." I broke off as he noddeed a little, looking slightly relieved at my answer.

"Well, its just good to see you're doing better. When Cas called he said you were in pretty bad shape..." Sam's eyes trailed over toward Castiel a moment, the look he received was one of exasperation and guilt. His smile faded a bit and he sighed, looking back to me. I was still just staring, and when he caught my eye again I looked away quickly, hands in my hoodie pocket and twidling my thumbs incessantly. "... You must be pretty tough." He finished, blinking a few times. "Something wrong?"

I shook my head a little, "No-no... Not really.. Its just..." My eyes went back over to him, as he waited patiently for an answer. ".. You caught me off guard... You're like a freaking Sasquatch.." That was a stupid reply. But honestly, it was what I was thinking!

Sam's expression went blank, Castiel's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Sam is nothing like a mythical big footed creature that roams in forests..." The Angel murmured, I was quickly becoming to realize that he wasn't just socially awkward. He was also very _literal_ , about almost everything.

"She's right Sammy, you are a Sasquatch." Another man's voice suddenly broke apart the small meeting, my eyes swept to the right to see another guy, with a leather jacket, a necklace, jeans, and boots walking toward us, an amused smirk playing at his lips. " _Finally,_ someone who agrees with me." He stopped beside us, giving me a smile and a small wink. I smiled faintly in return, feeling more flustered, but for some reason... I kinda felt I was gonna like this guy, Dean was it?

Sam regained his bearings. Rolling his eyes at his brother he shook his head. "Oh shut up Dean." Dean it is. "Don't listen to him, he's an idiot." Sam told me, only half joking.

"And Sammy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about," Dean retorted evenly, still smiling a bit. His green eyes rest on me, glittering in amusement. "I think you and I are gonna get along just fine, sweetheart." I smiled back, lowering my eyes a little, hey- I was still a pretty shy person at heart. "And don't you worry, we'll do everything we can to help you get sorted, and stay safe." He promised, I nodded slightly,

"T-thanks..." He smiled a little at the stammer, he and Sam seemed to be easily able to see how shy I was, and they both thought it was a little amusing...

"You can stay here as long as you need." Sam cut in suddenly, "And like Dean said; we'll do whatever we can for you, with the Demons after you and whatever else, you can trust us."

 _Trust?_

Trust was a strong thing, something that shouldn't be handed out willy nilly. I thought I trusted a few people in my life, but all of them are dead or either completely forgot I existed.

After that night, after what happened... I was so broken, so torn up, trust wasn't really even a word in my vocabulary anymore. Sam and Dean.. They seemed nice enough. I'm sure they were good people, but trusting anyone ever again? That was going to take time... A lot of it.

I nodded slowly, "... Alright... Thank you.. Again... I appreciate it." And I was sure to appreciate any help hunting those Demons after me, finding who wanted my life destroyed, and what they wanted from me.

They were Hunters right? They faced Demons and what not all the time, they must be good at what they do, and they could help me.

It suddenly hit me that Castiel had hardly spoken a word since we came in, well... He had hardly said anything to me for a long time now. But surely he wasn't that way with other people?

That's when I noticed the small looks shared between a grimfaced Angel and two very exasperated looking Hunters, before those looks disappeared and I was left looking between the three quickly. It was immediately clear that Castiel had something to say, and it was also clear he refrained from doing so in front of _me._ That made a small twinge of annoyance flare inside of me, before it went away as Dean smiled and flicked his head sideways. "Come on Sweetheart, I'll give you a tour."

 _Come with me and leave Castiel and Sam to talk_ , was what he really meant to say.

I just nodded a little and slowly followed him toward the hallway Sam had come out of, glancing over my shoulder slightly to see Sam and Castiel walking away toward the room filled with books.

"I realize living with a couple of dudes probably isn't your idea of 'comfortable'." Dean called back to me, earning my attention again. "But Cas, Sam and I.. We agree this is the safest place for you for now. At least until this all gets fixed.."

".. Its fine." I murmured, earning a glance over his shoulder toward me, though my eyes were on the floor. "... Its better than... Living in an Insane Asylum, all by myself..."

"I get that." Dean replied, I looked up, hearing the gentleness creeping into his voice, he wasn't looking my way anymore. "We actually, Sam and I, we spent some time in one of those... Its not pretty." He took in a small breath, ".. Four years of that... I wouldn't wish that on anyone, let alone you..."

I blinked, feeling a little flustered again, as his voice dropped to a low, soft tenor. He suddenly sounded so... So sad, so remorseful, so... Haunted, even... It caught me of gaurd. First glance, he seemed like a smart ass, a cocky dude who probably had a habit for flirting with ladies... And yet just suddenly, he was so sad... So gentle, soft... And _honest._

I had become very good at telling lies, at hearing how honest people were about things. I'd been good at it before, and I had only gotten better.

When he said that, that he wouldn't have wished all that time spent in the Mental Hospital on anyone... He meant it.

 _.. Just like when Castiel apologized..._

I shook my head slightly, pushing that last thought away.

"... Why... Were you there...?" I asked hesitantly. I didn't know if I should ask or not, what if it was something really personal like my story..?

"A job." Dean answered easily. I blinked in confusion, as he stopped outside a door and smiled at me a little.

"Job?"

"Cas already told you that we're Hunters right?"

"Yeah..." I nodded and he sighed a little,

"Well... We were hunting a sort of Monster inside the place, called a Wraith. Something that literally feeds off mental illness and the like." My eyes went a little wide at the words, shivering slightly as the thought of something feeding on people in the Mental Hospital hit me. That what if; there had been something there beside Demons?

I suddenly remembered all the times I thought I saw black eyes in the faces of the people who worked there, the panic that it instilled in me... I shook my head a little and pushed that away, rightly so, going down that road could lead to a break down, and I really didn't want that...

Dean noticed my reaction and his smile faded, as he rubbed the back of his neck a little. "Sorry... Probably shouldn't be giving you all the gorey details..." I shook my head at him,

"No, no it's fine... I mean, I did ask." I told him quickly, "Its fine, really... I need to start to get to know about this kind of stuff eventually anyway." He gave me a silent stare for a minute, like he was trying to see if I was being honest, or if I was sure maybe... I gestured at him a little, "So? Did you stop it? The Wraith?"

He smiled a little, nodding once. "Hell yeah, you're new to the supernatural thing, but Sam and I are... Well, some of the best Hunters out there, if I do say so myself." I smiled a little, that sounded rather conceded, but hell, what did I know about the Hunter world? Nothing. And I had to admit, this 'Bunker' was pretty impressive from the little I had seen of it.

"How many Hunters are there?"

"Not nearly as many as there should be." Was the simple answer, his face fell a little and suddenly his eyes grew sad... It reminded me of _me._

How many Hunters had he known, that weren't around anymore? That's what hit me about the look he suddenly had. The look I recognized so well, the one worn by people who had lost others... Those who has lost those people they knew... _Over and over..._

* * *

 _"Sorry its nothing special, but its a bed, with a door, and a bathroom- simple but it should work. Its a bit bare, but you can do with it what you like.. Posters, pictures... Whatever._

 _"Its... Fine. I don't need anything special... Not really in to posters or anything like that actually."_

 _"Well, that's... Surprising."_

 _"Not really a teenage girl, Dean."_

 _"Coulda fooled me."_

 _"Shut up..."_

I shook my head to myself as lay down on the bed, eyes closed and smiling slightly. Dean had given me a grand tour, from his room to Sam's, to the storage, computer, garage, he pointed out where the kitchen was, and the library- though we didn't go that way, because Sam and Castiel were still talking.

I was where I would be for the foreseeable future, my room- a barren room with a bed, a desk, dresser and a bathroom attached. As Dean had said, it was bare, empty, plain... It somewhat reminded me of my room in the Mental Hospital, only... It was warmer. The walls weren't white, neither were the sheets, the desk wasn't metal. It was different. It was comfortable.

Maybe I could have used a window, but I wouldn't see anything more than a shit ton of dirt anyway, underground and all.

Dean had left me be, telling me I should probably sleep ad he'd be back in a bit to check in- he also said yell if I needed something. Then he'd gone and I could faintly hear voices, muffled and indiscernible from where I was, but voices none the less- of all of them talking away, about me, about my fucked up life, and for some reason- I wasn't allowed to hear.

That pissed me off a little, honestly. What could they possibly say that I didn't already know? What else would I not have the right to know about? This was my life they were meddling in, and I wasn't allowed to know about it.

I let out a heavy sigh, throwing my arms down above my head, eyes closed and all attention focused on trying to hear anything that they were saying. This room was down the hall from Sam's and down another to the left, just across from a room used for storage. Needless to say, I was too far to hear hardly anything.

I wasn't going to go to sleep though, I had been unconscious and in an ever lasting nightmare for 24 freaking hours, sleep was the last thing on my mind. Not that I wasn't tired, but even then... I couldn't sleep now.

 _"How many Hunters are there?"_

 _"Not nearly as many as there should be."_

Not nearly as many as there should be. Not nearly as many people as their should be to fight all the evil and the dirty that hide out in the dark. Not nearly enough to save people, to hunt things that would do harm. Maybe its just me, but that didn't seem right.

... But then again, Dean looked so sad when he said that. How many people, how many Hunters, die doing what they do? Probably more than anyone would care to count.

I sat up and climbed off the bed, I wasn't looking to sit in silence in this room, so... I was gonna look around by myself.

I slipped out the door and closed it softly, my eyes moving over toward the door opposite me, the one full of shelves filled with boxes filled with who the freaking hell knows what. I figured they probably wouldn't want me snooping, but hell, I had nothing else to do.

So inside the next door I went, closing that one behind me and pausing a moment, the room was large enough, and it was packed. So many boxes, all of them labeled individually, most of them 'Poltergeist Case #blah blah' or some other supernatural case or what not you could ever imagine.

I took to walking among the shelves, my hand gliding along the boxes as I glanced the labels over curiuosly,

 _"Investigation of Werewolf Pack ... Pennsylvania #123..."_

 _"... Incursion of Banshees... New Orleans... 1976..."_

 _"... Unidentified supernatural activity years 1866-1987."_

 _"... Vampire Nest... Washington DC..."_

And all manner of other things, I paused once, just as I came before a box labeled _'Demonic Omens, Tennessee... 1956'._

Demonic... _Demons._

Without a second thought I pulled the box from the shelf and started rifling though it, pulling the first moldy, musty smelling folder out and taking a seat on the floor beside the shelf, opening it up.

I read every word. Let it all sink in, let my mind wrap around it. It wasn't really anything special, in all honesty- mostly dates, times, and the amount of time a Demonic Omen went on for.

Apparently, mutilated cows, lightning storms, and serious influxes were markers of huge Demon activity, weird weather in general really...

 _... The storm_ , the freak storm that erupted in Gildsten the night everything happened, that had to have, and mostly definitely was, _a Demonic Omen_.

... Wish I had known that, but then again... Even with that knowledge, what was I supposed to have done?

I leaned back against the shelf, the file resting in my lap. I needed to learn all of this, how to stop Demons, how to notice them, find them... Everything. Anything that would help me find out what happened, how my life was torn to shreds, why and who was after me.

In short, I needed to become a Hunter.

I wasn't really looking to do whatever the hell it was that Dean and Sam did exactly... I didn't figure I was cut out for that sort of thing. But still, what better way to learn all I needed to know? Then to be a Hunter? The very people who killed and stopped all the nasty and the dark things that ruined (most definitely _ruined_ \- I should know) people's lives?

Now, convincing any of those three people out on the other side of the Bunker that me becoming a Hunter was the way to go... I didn't really see that going over so well. Hell, to them I was the half-dead mental case who could break down at any moment. And it was true, but what they didn't see just yet was the drive- the drive for revenge. That was the only thing that was going to keep me together, and it was sure as hell gonna keep me going for a long time yet.

They'd have to agree to it, even though I'm sure they won't want to... I faintly wondered, how many female Hunters were there at all? It seemed more the.. Male sort of role, but what did it matter? _I was gonna do it._ My mind was made up.

"... Alright... Between the Apocalypse... Angel War... Purgatory... I get that... Been busy..." My attention snapped from my own thoughts when I finally caught a bit of the conversation being held between Sam, Dean and Castiel.

 _Purgatory? Angel war?_

 _Apocalypse?!_

Had that happened? Well, clearly not- world would be dead then wouldn't it? And what the hell was Angel War and Purgatory about?

Could there lives be that crazy? _Seriously?_

Cause to me... That sounded like a whole lot of insanity, was Purgatory even a real thing? Well... Angels were apparently, so that didn't seem so crazy... And neither did Apocalypse or Angel War in that case... No, no! _That is insane_! Wouldn't the world be one big jeeoing mess of shit if an Angel War and the freaking _Apocalypse_ had gone on?

Had they just casually called all that 'being busy'? Like it was some list of menial chores on a Friday night? _The holy hell...?!_

I froze a moment, suddenly remembering what Castiel had said to me; that he had been watching me before shit hit the fan and then _'...off and on since that time...'._

Is that what... _Off and on_ had entailed? That that stupid freaking Angel had been busy with the Apocalypse, an Angel War, and then something involving Purgatory? That's why he sucked at his 'job' of watching me?

No... _No freaking way_. That doesn't account for why he didn't do a damn thing to help me, or my family when Demons came in and reeked havoc.

"... How... To erase... From existing...?... I don't... Anything... Could... That... No Spell... Its gotta... Impossible..." I listened intently some more, eyes closing and ears straining. How could anyone be erased from records and minds like they never existed? Question of the century right there...

"... Cas...?" It just suddenly hit me that Dean and Sam don't call Castiel, _Castiel._ They gave him a... _A nickname..._ That seemed very familiar, how close were they to that Angel anyway? In order to give him a nickname, and apparently have the Angel's full trust?

"... Don't know... Never found... Can't... Find..." Now I knew that was Castiel. Because he had already admitted it to me, he just...

 _... Didn't know._

 _No one_ seemed to know, there was just one person, one thing... That Demon that had ordered my life get torn to shreds, the one who wanted something from me.

Whoever that was, they were the only one who knew a damn thing. If I was gonna get answers, I had to learn, I had to be a Hunter. I had to be a damn good Hunter, if I was ever gonna find anything that a freaking Angel hadn't been able to, and that was just what I was gonna do.

 _No matter what._


End file.
